Today, the folks from Best Friends and I boarded the Coromandel Express, which, in 13+ hours, took us from Chennai to Visakhapatnam (Vizag). Within an hour, we were out of Tamil Nadu and into Andhra Pradesh. It was nice to get out of the city and see the greenery of the countryside. Patches of color appeared where women spread just-washed saris and lunghis on the ground or over bushes to dry.

Thirteen hours is a long time. It was spent looking out the window, reading, and chatting with Lavanya of Best Friends and with our compartment-mate, Mr. Kumar. Mr. Kumar told me about the 4-day harvest festival of Pongal, as it is known in Tamil Nadu, or Sankranthi, as it is called in Andhra Pradesh. Read my entry about it in Joyatri’s Blog on the Best Friends Network site.