Well, I made it to India. Hardly a great beginning though. After a series of very long flights, and very long immigration lines in the Chennai airport, I exited the airport to 80-degree weather. Scary at 6 in the morning.

I was expecting a car from the hotel to be there to pick me up, but there wasn't one. I looked again at the paperwork/itinerary our rep sent over, and it indicated I wasn't arriving in Chennai until 10A. Rather than wait around for four hours, I simply hired a cab and made my way to the hotel.

Unfortunately, the hotel didn't have a reservation under my name, or the reps name, or the company name. Even worse, since it was early morning, the B-team was still working the front desk and their English was about as good as my Hindi.

I finally got a room, and after a dozen calls to the front desk, got Internet connectivity. Now that the basic needs are met, I think I'm up for a shower and some sack time.

As for the pic, it's the view from my hotel room. It's a shame the camera flash ruined my first shot...you could have caught a glimpse of one of my neighbors enjoying his morning pee off the roof across the way. Actually looked kinda fun.

It's funny...on the trip up, I had several deep insights into travel and life and everything. Insights that made me think "oh, you should put that on the blog". For the life of me, I can't remember a one of them right now!

I'm trying to be optimistic and believe that the rest of the trip will be great, but it's a bit challenging to be "up" after 20-something hours in the air!