Expedition Chennai: The Accidental Tourist Attraction

Despite being Americans, most of us look like the average Indian: brown skin, black hair. Thuy, however, does not. That meant that she had to pay the non-Indian entrance fee wherever we went. This could be 10 times the Indian entrance fee, e.g. 20R for Indians at the zoo, 200R for Thuy. OK, so 200R is a little over $4 and not a big deal in America. But the difference, to Indians, is huge.

I did make the suggestion that Thuy claim to be from the northeastern part of India that borders Bhutan and Burma. Many of the northeastern natives have phenotypic, cultural, and religious similarities with far-east Asians. Interestingly, the Chennai edition of The Hindu (one of India’s national daily newspapers) ran an article about the large number of northeastern Indians who’ve moved to Chennai seeking jobs in the automotive industry. So there was a glimmer of credibility to my lie. Alas, the idea had no traction.

Not only did the people in the ticket booths notice Thuy's foreignness, other tourists did too. The first incident happened at the Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram. A young lady in a group asked Thuy, in halting English, to take a picture. We assumed that she wanted Thuy to take a group photo of her and her friends at the temple. But she gave Thuy a quizzical look when Thuy asked for her camera and reluctantly posed with her friends. After the group photo, she said something and pointed to Thuy, which was when we realized that she wanted to take their picture with Thuy!

The Thuy photo-op recurred at several tourist sites and we concluded that a foreigner sighting was as big an event as visiting a historical landmark. We also decided that Thuy should charge for pictures, but in reverse; you know, 200R for Indians and 20R for non-Indians.

Even though most people took photos of Thuy with their own cameras, we managed to get a few photos of Indians posing with Thuy.