I took an internal flight to Madurai to reach a town called Rajapalayam, where I'd be teaching English in a school and staying with the local factory workers for around a week. As I stepped off the plane at Madurai airport at around 6:30pm I was greeted by a severe tropical thunder storm. I met the driver who only speaks the local language, Tamil. Bags in the loaded in the car, I turned on my iPod for the two hour journey to Rajapalayam. To say the roads were t...

The weekend of my arrival was spent in Chennai. India's fourth largest city, situated on the south east coast of the country. When I arrived it was 18 degrees at night, 30 at midday. I stayed with Lorna, a friend of a friend who I'd been put in touch with before leaving England. There was no moment to pause before adjusting to life in lndia. Eating with your right hand and doing other 'unsanitary' activities with the left was an instant challenge. Lorna was a gr...

As I boarded the Boeing 777 to Chennai all had gone well so far. Check-in went fine and strolled through security. Grabbed some lunch with time to spare before boarding. Could not wait to start the 5,000 mile journey to Chennai. All was going great…until the in-flight movie. I'm a big Ridley Scott fan so Prometheus seemed like a good choice. Flights I've previously travelled had shown the likes of Air Force One and Con Air so a sci-fi thriller looked like a ...