VGP Golden Beach Resort, Chennai

After a wonderful stay in Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram, we moved towards Chennai to the VGP Golden Beach Resort in the hope of spending a day or two lazing in a resort, spending time by the beach before leaving back for Bangalore. Alas, that was not to be. I know it sounds dramatic but it was such a disaster from the word go. We reached the Resort around 2 ish in the afternoon. It is a really huge property but falling to ruin. The figurines look disfigured and hideous. We checked into our cottage which has a big room with an ancient sofa with a hole in it, a bedsheet which is a little short, the AC works but the remote does not, no temperature controls either. There is an LCD TV with only Tamil channels and the reception is pathetic. When I call Housekeeping, they send a remote and the technician who was supposed to set the TV right never arrived.

We ordered food from Room Service. It was very greasy, came after a long while and was terribly overpriced. We would not have eaten it were we not so hungry. The Room Service chap said that we don’t provide hand towels. This one takes the cake. We asked the Room Service guy to fill our bottles with filtered drinking water. He offered to fill our bottles from the garden tap ?????? For once, we were speechless. It was difficult to communicate as they spoke only Tamil. On calling them over the phone, they kept giggling and passing the phone around when after losing my patience, I gave them a piece of my mind and then this guy went ahead and filled our bottles. We were scared to drink this though and went out and bought some Aquafina. We did go to the beach in the evening which was when the kids enjoyed, there was also a Theme Park which again was enjoyed by the kids. The beach was littered with plastic and rubbish. There were too many stray dogs around and the whole place seemed like it was being left to ill repair and poor maintenance to slowly disintegrate.

In the evening, there was this loud roar and when Gurdev went to inquire he found out that the Resort guys were shooting the stray dogs. We were aghast. These were really loud gunshots. Agreed that the stray dogs were a menace but who gave them the right to kill them. I wish I had some Animal Protection Agency’s number at hand then. We went out for dinner to a place closeby. We did not want to risk eating at another of the Resort’s restaurants. On our way back, we saw two guys dragging a dead dog. It was a horrible sight and it troubled Gautam enough to keep asking what happened to doggie, why did they kill it??? Gurdev and I wanted to go out for an evening stroll but decided not to risk getting shot in place of a dog. We chatted for a while, there was no TV to watch and decided to wake up early for the sunrise.

I did have nightmares due to all this dog shooting thing and we did wake up early the next morning and managed to capture the sunrise which is always spectacular. The kids were asleep and the two of us sat for a while on the beach watching the beautiful waves and the changing hues of the sky. It is always such a relaxing sight. Two pet dogs were playing on the beach and suddenly came to sniff us, climbed all over us, in the bargain damaged our camera. After that none of the snaps we took came focused. We had planned on bringing the kids once more to the beach in the morning but dropped the idea. The whole resort experience had been nothing but terrible. Which kind of Resort has people who can’t understand English. We had originally planned for 2 nights but left very early around 8ish the very next day after arrival from this hellish place. Please, please visit this place at your own risk.

On our way out, we saw that some film shooting was going to take place and just when we were taking our car out, we saw the heroine coming in her Ambassador. We did not recognize her, but of course. And Siddharth was like she must be a very small time one to come in an Ambassador with its windows rolled down :). Gurdev’s Nokia with its GPS proved to be perfect in giving us great directions to proceed towards Bangalore. Chennai city traffic was bad, it being peak hour. This was my first time in Chennai but it proved just a transit point for me. We stopped on the way to have breakfast. It took us a while to hit NH7 but once there the ride became more pleasant. When we entered Bangalore we felt inordinately pleased especially after our bad experience the day before. The first things that hit us – the Kannada signboards ( I cannot read Kannada) and the wonderful drop in temperature :).

I will retain the beautiful memories of a nice hospitable people, a different culture, the beautiful monuments and the sea all along with its soothing waves.