January 28th 2009: I meander back toward the Hive Backpackers to pick up my second passport. Malaysia can be a bit hard on people with more than one passport so I had left it in Singapore. On the way I pick up a microphone to help with Skype calls. The hostel has my passport--they're good to have held on to it for the 40 days I was in Malaysia. A girl with a North American accent starts asking all sorts of questions. She's a Canadian who has been working in Korea teaching high school for the last 6 years. She has an interesting looking brass-colored round necklace and a few rings, perhaps things she picked up on her travels. She's not very interested in traveling. On vacation for a week she just wants to plop down on a beach somewhere to escape the cold Korean winter. It always shocks me to discover other people have been enduring cold weather, what with all the swealtering of an Australian summer and tropical Asia. I do my best to suggest possibilities for her vacation. I tell her about the bed bugs at the hostel and she gets nervous, but when asked they say they've dealt with them. She keeps me company while I scarfe down a proper meal at the Lavender St. food court, whose price was bumped up one dollar for the holiday. She heads back to the hostel, I continue my meandering journey.

I make my way down to the EW15 subway station where there may be proper insect repellents at the Guardian pharmacy at the Anson St. exit. Last time I was there they had DEET and Picaridin repellents, but this time they only have DEET cream and a couple of Hansplast repelents using ethly-butylacetylaminopropionate. This last one could be Picaridin, or it might not, but I buy it just in case, figuring that it will be impossible to find decent repellents in India and this might just work. I still have about 6 weeks worth of DEET left from Australia so either way I'm not worried. Later, I find that the active ingredient is also known as IR3535 and has a lower effectiveness and durability than DEET or Picaridin but is still an acceptable repelent, and is certainly better than nothing. According to a WHO publication there are no toxicological studies in humans, though it is believed to have low toxicity.

From here I take the train to the airport. Along the way I chat with a man on the train. He is a slighter build than me and looks to be in his early thirties, but turns out to be 42 and have two children. He was a regional manager for a large communications company but now runs an executive search company. He talks about the economic downturn, that it's hard to place people now, the economy is not doing well and will take 3 years to recover. He even has trouble placing people with pay cuts. An interesting fellow to meet randomly on the train. My large pack and hat seem to attract all sorts of attention, usually of a favorable nature. The airport is uneventful. An American, a retired military man and his Philipino-looking lady are trying to book a flight, but his laptop battery is dead and he asks if he can borrow mine, which I say is fine as soon as I manage to connect to the SG-wireless provider, a process involving a form in which you must provide a mobile number and identity information (passport, etc.) My Malay sim card comes in handy and I get the password. Why people make it a hastle to use something free is entirely beyond me. The American tries to make a booking but is unable to find a suitable flight.

A quick dinner at the airport, repack, adjust weight (swap boots for shoes to keep weight under 15 kg), lookup some information about Chennai, board flight. The flight is full of dark-skinned Tamil Indians. A 3-4 year old girl and her mother board ahead of me. The girl just wants to look out the windows at the plane. She has some skin problem causing a few pink blebs on her face and hand but seems fine otherwise. She is certainly a cute handful for her mother, who is just trying to get through the check-in process with a child who is much more interested in running off to look at the interesting things to be seen. Between checking in and boarding I manage to lose my boarding pass, but remember my seat number, which turns out to be an exit row. Lucky me, what a posh seat! Then a smelly Indian man who didn't shower for a couple of days sits down next to me. He says he works as a quality inspector. He's been working for the last 8 years in Singapore. His wife and children are back in India. Eight years apart from one's family is a long time. I read about songlines in Australia, munch on Canadian brownies, drink Singapore tap water, get woken by senseless anouncements that come across airplane intercoms.

The plane lands on time. The most astonishing thing happens, though, during landing. As soon as the wheels touch the ground the sound of dozens of seatbelts being unclicked is heard. All I can think is that whoever takes off their seatbelt at this moment is a complete idiot--it is one of the most dangerous times during a flight. At touchdown a plane is doing 150-200 kmh (this is an Airbus if I recall correctly), not a speed at which I would want to be hurled against a bulkhead. Clearing immigration and picking up my bags takes little time. I hire a taxi to Triplicane, which seems like a place with some hotels. The taxi is one of those old contraptions that seem to never expire, an old Amabassador car, painted white, it could be from the time of the Rajas, myself a dignified British visitor. The taxi driver has a lit-up statue of a god on his dash. The first two hotels are expensive, over INR$1000 per night, so I ask the driver to take me to another hotel, but it is full and the other hotels nearby are full and closed for the night. I go back to the expensive hotel and tip the driver a bit extra for his efforts. It is midnight and time to sleep, yet men are still working on the road outside the hotel, the night guard stands by to help, holding his weapon, a shovel. The hotel is dull and overpriced (INR$1045 in total) but I manage to sleep a few hours.