Medical services are state of the art
in Chennai. There are several big hospitals but the
biggest and most famous is Apollo. People come from
all over the country for treatment. Christian Medical
College, Vellore an hour from Chennai, is one of the
premier medical institutes in India. 24-hour chemists,
highly competent doctors and top of the line medical
services are available here.
Health
The entire Indian sub continent has the same health
hazards so one line of defence should cover you on all
territories. The major risks to your health from the
armies of mosquitoes are malaria, encephalitis, kala
azar and dengue. Cover your arms and legs; be liberal
with the repellent and in problem areas sleep under
a mosquito net. Traveller’s diarrhoea is another
running problem and year after year traveller after
traveller gets the ‘loosies’. Ensure it’s
nothing nastier by avoiding green salads, uncooked food,
and water that you haven’t sanitised by dropping
an iodine pill into.
Slightly more serious is the risk of contacting AIDS,
Hepatitis B and other sexually transmitted diseases.
For your sake and the sake of the people you’re
visiting always use a condom. Have safe responsible
sex. Travellers from yellow fever areas are required
to have an inoculation certificate. Prior immunisation
for poliomyelitis is recommended.
Safety
Chennai is a safe travel destination. Cases of mugging,
theft and worse aren’t completely unheard of but
by and large serious crimes against travellers are few
and far between.
Basic precautions:
- Keep your money and travel documents close to your
body (perhaps in a pouch slung around your neck, tucked
out of sight under your shirt),
- Keep several photocopies of your passport, insurance,
travellers’ cheques etc. scattered through your
luggage,
- Do not use a waist pouch, it may as well be a transparent
plastic bag: it’s that fragile and that obvious!
- Do not put all your money in one place,
- Be extremely alert in the dark. One of the things
that protect travellers to India is the vast crowds
in any place. The multitudes however, disappear into
their homes at night, and you go from having a huge
thick safety quilt to a flimsy sheet! Try your best
to be in a familiar area when it gets dark. If you
are not, at least know how you can get to that area
from wherever it is that you happen to be.
- Many women travellers wear the long tunic and loose
pyjama dress of Indian women called the salwar-kameez
and find that it substantially dissuades unwanted
male attention.
- If you are travelling alone, do not advertise it.
- If you lose your passport, lodge a First Information
Report at the local police station and contact your
embassy.
Electricity
220volts/ 50 hertz is the frequency at which electricity
is available WHEN it is! Power cuts and ‘load
shedding’ is a regular feature. Another reason
for visiting in the colder months would be that not
only do power cuts become fewer but you’ll also
feel the pain of them less! If your electric razor has
flat-pin plug then carry a combination plug that will
feed into a round-pin socket: across the sub continent
plug point sockets are round rather than flat.
Customs & Duties
If you are above 17 years you may import the following
in without attracting duty:;
200 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 250 grams of tobacco,
a litre of alcoholic drink, 250 ml perfume, gifts up
to a value of Rupees 750 (foreign passport holders),
gifts up to a value of Rupees 6000 (Indian passport
holders) and articles of personal use.
It is illegal to bring in drugs, gold and silver bullion,
plants and coins that have gone out of use.
Post & Communications
Postal services in India are quite efficient. Letters
overseas must be marked "Air Mail" or "Par
Avion". It takes a week to 10 days for letters
to reach the U.K. and the U.S from Chennai. Have letters
for you (Surname first) addressed to the GPO (General
Post Office)Chennai, ‘Poste Restante’. The
post offices hold letters for 30 days, and you’ll
have to show them your passport for identification.
Parcels are a bit tedious to send or receive and often
when they do finally arrive, they’ve been tampered
with. Courier services are widely available in the cities
and small towns.
"Cyber cafes" are an increasingly common
fixture in Chennai’s urban landscape, in major
cities and even in smaller towns. At a fixed rate that
varies from city to city, locality-to-locality, you
can check your mail and surf the net. Very often the
Internet business is an extension of what used to be
a just a "PCO".
In loopy lanes, beneath shady peepul trees, in busy
markets......all over India, little yellow boards spill
out of little kiosks with the cryptic letters "PCO-STD-ISD"
(...... huh?) 15 years ago the telecommunications miracle
swept India and today, proud bearers of that legacy,
‘Public Call Offices’ bring to the streets
the services of ‘Subscribers’ Trunk Dialling’
and ‘International Standard Dialling’. Most
offer fax services, and more and more now, Internet
facilities too.
Country code for India: 0091. Codes for the metros:
Delhi-011, Mumbai-022, Calcutta-033 and Chennai-044.
When calling from overseas omit the zero in the city
code.
Tipping
It is customary to tip 10% of the bill at restaurants,
but you may tip less if service charges have been included
in the bill. At hotels tip 10 bucks to the bellhop,
the same to the doorman ‘durban’; if the
service is particularly good, substantially more to
the concierge and housekeeping. You’ll find some
of the most friendly and colourful service at tiny nondescript
roadside stalls called ‘dhabas’. A small
tip, even if it is only loose change, will be appreciated
tremendously.
Black and yellow cab drivers do not expect to be tipped.
The opposite is true if you have a hired a cab for a
long period. Coolies (porters) at railway platforms
have to be paid; negotiate the payment before you hire
one.
English Language Media
No matter where you are in India it is never going
to be difficult to find an English language newspaper.
All the major dailies, and there are many in this country
where the fourth estate is startlingly independent and
strong, have multiple editions with at least one from
every region and one on the net. Chennai has English
language editions of major national newspapers like
The Hindu, Indian Express, Deccan Herald and The Times
of India as well as of business papers. There are two
major weekly newsmagazines and both are easily available
at kiosks all over. Even international fashion glossies
have an edition coming out of India now though these
are available only in the bigger cities.
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