Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
and Chennai (India) 2024-2025

CHENNAI Part 3: Art in the Government Museum, then a flight to Bangkok

9 January Chennai International Airport
Although I could have checked out this morning, I had paid for an extra day so that I could come and go from my room until heading to the airport tonight. The day began with a dosa breakfast at the guesthouse and some journal writing, then I caught an Uber taxi north to the Government Museum, a group of historic buildings with wide-ranging collections of modern Indian art, ancient brass statues, archaeological finds, natural history, and folk art. The museum got started back in 1851, making it the country’s second oldest museum after Kolkata’s Indian Museum (1814), and moved to its present site in 1854. On my previous visits to the museum over the years, the National Art Gallery had been dilapidated and closed. So I was very pleasantly surprised to find this beautiful building—in a traditional Mughal-Jaipuri style with a pink sandstone façade—repaired and open. The high-ceilinged main hall exhibits highlights of the museum’s collection, mainly paintings. A gallery in back features works by Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), an Indian painter and artist who used his training in European academic art to express purely Indian subjects. He became widely known by making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public. I found the paintings very appealing. Just to the west I visited the Contemporary Art Gallery, a large and diverse collection of paintings—actually mostly Modern Art—by Indian artists, including more by Raja Ravi Varma. A temporary art exhibition on the ground floor had a few intriguing paintings. I skipped the Children’s Museum and headed to the Bronze Gallery—three floors with what’s said to be the richest collection of bronze idols in Asia. South Indian Hindu bronzes predominate, with the first two floors showcasing mainly Shiva and his family while Vishnu and his family reside on the top floor. Small groups of Buddha and Jain images appear too. Lastly I entered the Main Building, a huge structure, but only the two-story front room was open with ancient stone statues of Hindu deities.
 
The driver of the auto taxi back to my room had to negotiate very heavy traffic most of the way—not a job I would like to have. In the evening I headed over to Susindar’s house for one last visit. He kindly got a food delivery from Sangeetha Restaurant of South Indian food.
 
Back at my room I just had time for a quick shower and final packing before heading to the airport. I could have walked to the nearby Nandanam Metro station, but got an Uber auto. In complete contrast from Chennai’s bumpy and dusty roads, the underground Metro is clean and efficient. A ticket to the airport was just Rs. 30 ($0.35). I rode seven stops to the end of the line from where I could walk to the attractive contemporary International Terminal. Normally I would fly back to Bangkok on Air Asia, but the fare on THAI was about the same and would give me more legroom and a bit better service. No matter which airline, the flights all seem to go in the middle of the night. My THAI Flight TG338 was scheduled to depart at 1:30 a.m. and arrive at 6:25 a.m., losing 1.5 hours from time zones. Check-in was a bit slow because of the number of passengers on this full wide-body flight. Things got delayed at Indian Immigration when the official very carefully went over all my details, then stopped me because the guesthouse had failed to register me. I had to wait at another desk to get a form and fill out accommodation information before I could go. Security took a long time because of a mix of inefficiency and meticulousness.
 
10 January Bangkok, Thailand
The Boeing 777-200ER took to the skies on time for a flight due east across the Bay of Bengal and Myanmar that took just under three hours. Despite the late hour, I enjoyed getting a full meal of Indian food. On arrival in Bangkok I had a long hike to Thai Immigration, which was very quick thanks to an express line for travelers over age 70. An advantage of flying on THAI Airways is that it lands at Suvarnabhumi—the main airport for Bangkok—with better public transport than the Don Meuang Airport used by the low-cost carriers. I hopped on Bangkok Airport Rail Link, an elevated train for a quick ride to Makkasan Station, where I transferred to the MRT subway to the Lumphini Station, an easy walk to where I’m staying. However check-in for my basic Airbnb room wasn’t until 3 p.m., so I put bags in my storage unit across the street. I got back on the MRT line for a short ride to House Samyan, where I watched the very strange movie “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” (2024) about Cold War drama surrounding the independence of the Republic of Congo in the early 1960s. Afterward I took care of some shopping before checking in. In coming days I will be enjoying Bangkok’s art scene and getting ready for a group bicycle ride in northern Thailand, from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai. 

 

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