Otell

The Taj is a heritage hotel, the only one in Chennai. It is old and lovely, with a definate sense of "A Passage to India" about it. There are times when walking the halls and studying the faces of the Lords of England and Rajas of the Princely States of India that I feel a bit out of time, like some Lovecraftian investigator being teased into a world that isn't quite in geometric harmony with the world I was born into.

It doesn't help that its hard to not like being pampered by a well trained staff of beautiful, intelligent people. One of the waitresses in the cafe is one of the three most beautiful women I've ever seen. She turns me into a suttering idiot every time I talk to her, and every time I mouth some gibberish at her she laughs and smiles like I was the most charming man she'd ever met.

She has the face of one of the princesses in the paintings in the hall, one of the ones whose nation was destroyed by the British. I have a face not dissimialar to one of the Brits.

But the rooms are lovely.