The final leg of our journey was only four hours, but it was still plenty of time to see a film or two and have breakfast (if you can call it that).

Chennai airport could not be more different from Dubai. In places it appears perpetually unfinished; elsewhere, it bears the weary air of something long past its prime. As I stood inching forward in the customs queue, I glimpsed a small creature scurrying along the wooden scaffolding outside the window—whether lizard or rat, I couldn’t be sure. The queue itself progressed with a stately slowness that would make England proud. Perhaps the art of the long, immovable queue was one of the many things exported during the years of the forced British Empire.

The unwelcome humidity of the Chennai morning greeted us as we left the airport. Monsoon season was upon us, and not one of us had considered checking weather reports or seasonal changes before travel. Not that it would have changed when we went, this was business, but we may at least have been prepared for it.

This scene could have belonged to a number of developing countries I’ve visited, but it most closely echoed my first impressions of Cairo a few short years ago, with hints of Puno in Peru. Yet this was not the whole picture. Along the way we passed the city’s new ‘IT zone,’ home to clusters of sleek, modern buildings. The juxtaposition was striking, laying bare the vast wealth gap between those who live and work side by side in this place.

The sound of car horns blared across the roads; drivers alerting each other to their presence and their intention. Unlike back home where we’d use it only when necessary, here it would be used without any animosity or hesitation. Tuc-tucs were in abundance, though here we’d learn they are known as ‘auto-rickshaws’ due to them essentially being a rickshaw with a motor engine.

Trees lined the road around the hotel, the Quality Inn Sabari Classic. The taxi drove up to the heavy metal gate, and employees of the hotel used a mirror on wheels to check under the car, and then checked the boot of the vehicle as well. Once they were satisfied with their checks, the gate was opened to let us onto the secure but short driveway.

The rooms of this hotel were pretty much what you’d expect of hotels such as Holiday Inn, and actually looked very similar in décor and facilities. I didn’t get to relax for long though, as we’d found our taxi driver was booked for the entire day and was expecting to take us sightseeing.

Fighting sleep deprivation, we got changed into some cooler clothes, and met back up in the lobby. After around thirty kilometres we finally stopped, at a place called ‘The Bank’. This is a place where they breed crocodiles and export them to the rest of the world, but they close on Mondays. It was unfortunate they were closed when we got there, but the driver indicated there was somewhere else he could take us.

Fifteen minutes of driving later, we parked up in a place that seemed a little more touristic than the first, with stalls of people selling their wares. Others stood around, offering to sell their services as a guide for Mamallapuram.

This coastal town is named after the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I, who also came to be known as Mamalla - meaning ‘great warrior’ or Mahabali - meaning ‘great king’. They then combined this with the Sanskrit-derived term for a settlement: puram. So this place was the City of the Great King.

Several people offered to act as our guide, but we politely declined. One, however, ignored our refusal and began following us as we wandered through the UNESCO World Heritage site. I suspected he would later demand payment for services we had never accepted and warned the others, but they were content to keep engaging with him.

The temples were carved with an astonishing level of detail, and we lingered among them, our eyes tracing the intricate lines in the stonework and pausing at every structure we could reach. Despite our talking, we discovered wild monkeys moving freely through the ruins. I crouched low, excited to see them, as I lifted my camera and photographed one curious monkey that allowed me to edge closer, step by careful step. Then a colleague pointed out movement among the rocks. I looked up to see another monkey nestled in the shadows, protectively watching over a tiny juvenile whose skin was still bare, its fur yet to grow. I was pleased to have gone on this trip.

We had our photos taken in the doorway of one temple, then had an amusing photo taken where it looked like we were propping up the giant boulder known as Krishna’s butterball. To end the tour we had one last look at the giant relief: Descent of the Ganges. It seemed to be as tall as a house, at least, and every inch of it was filled with detail.

As expected, the young man following us around expected to be paid for talking to us. I left the others to talk their way out of this one whilst I carried on taking photographs.

Back in the car, our driver wanted to show us more, and the language barrier prevented us learning what he was trying to explain to us. There were actually more temples on the beach, but we missed them through not understanding, and wanting to get back to the hotel for a shower, and a rest after a sleepless flight.

Over an hour later we were back at the hotel. At last I could sleep, or at least try to. At any rate, I got to relax for a while before we met in the hotel restaurant for a slice of cake and a cup of tea. The tea tasted awful to me though, with a slightly cheesy taste. I thought that meant it was goat’s milk, but I later learned that in India they boil the milk instead of pasteurising it. That may not make sense, as pasteurisation is from the heating of milk, but there is a difference.

In the UK we pasteurise milk by heating it briefly to ~72°C for around fifteen seconds, or to ~135–150°C for 2–5 seconds if it’s UHT. In India they often get milk delivered to them raw, and refrigeration was often unreliable for them, so instead they would heat it to 100°C for several minutes. The boiling process, whilst historically their only way to make it safe to drink, would change the proteins in the milk causing some loss in nutrients, and also give it a caramelised flavour. It’s not so much of a requirement there now, but many still do it out of habit.

From there, we were picked up by our hosts, and taken to the restaurant at the MGM Beach Resort that is located on a beach in the Bay of Bengal. We were told that this beach wasn’t safe for swimming due to strong currents, and that a few years previous the whole area had been devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In the intervening years they had done a great job in rebuilding, but there was still evidence of this terrible event.

We tried out different authentic Indian dishes from the buffet whilst a ferocious lightning storm lit up the night sky over the Indian Ocean. Some of the dishes were so spicy they even made our hosts sweat.

On the drive back to the hotel, the sky unleashed its fury. Rain hammered against the windshield, growing heavier by the second, as if the monsoon had arrived to demonstrate to us of its might. Each droplet struck the road with such force that it bounced back almost half a metre - it was a shocking sight to see. The car plowed through what felt like a raging stream where the road had been, a relentless curtain of water spraying from every direction. I thought of the comparatively gentle ‘April showers’ back home and of the chaotic, drenched scenes in Forrest Gump’s Vietnam. It brought a moment of understanding to that scene.

Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, the storm stopped, leaving an almost surreal pause. Minutes later, it roared back to life, drumming on the roof and splashing along the streets, relentless at least until we reached the Siruseri suburb.

Since arriving this morning we’d already experienced so much, but at long last we could sleep.