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Published: February 21st 2008
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Pondicherry Hey again!
So to catch everyone up, I'm going to lump Pondicherry and Madurai blogs together.
After arriving in Pondicherry, we dropped our bags and then decided to explore the town a little. Pondicherry is a former French colony and still retains some of the culture. Even the streets are named "Rue ___"!
Pondy is a really nice, relaxed seaside town. The whole place is easily walk-able and generally has a nice atmosphere. It's also a center for yoga and spiritual study and a major producer of homemade paper products.
In our wanderings we found a little antique shop that was packed full of treasures. I found a beautiful ceramic Ganesh (god with an elephant’s head) sculpture and a few other smaller trinkets. Burt found a really neat chess set.
Our second day started with a lesson in shipping things home. My Ganesh sculpture was a little heavy, so I thought it would be better to send it home. We went to the post office but they told us we had to get it packaged first and sent us to a packing store. That took about an hour, but the guy who owned the store
(Michael) was really nice and provided some comic relief. He and his nephew Alex are sort of an Indian Laurel and Hardy duo. Once Ganesh was good to go, we went back to the post office and sent him off and then went to a cafe called
kaashi ki aasha for a light lunch. The cafe doubles as a handicrafts boutique and I managed to find another couple things to buy. It's good I know how to ship stuff home now -- I've been shopping like crazy!
After shopping we found an internet cafe and tried to book a train ticket to Madurai for the following day. Now I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow we were one day off. We thought it was the 14th of February when it was really the 13th. In trying to book our ticket we discovered this error... oops.
The next day and a half consisted of more shopping, lots of eating, and walking all around Pondy. Our train was not until 9:30PM on the 14th and we were catching it from another town. So we stayed as late as we could at our hotel and then took a taxi over
to the Villuparam train station. Then we got to sit for three and a half hours, desperately trying to avoid the swarms of mosquitoes.
Finally the train came and we found our seats -- one upper and one lower berth in the sleeping carriage. The ride was comfortable enough, but I had the fun experience of using the bathroom. Let me tell you, squatting toilets on moving trains are not for everyone! Surprisingly though, it was cleaner than any airplane bathroom I've ever seen.
Burt and I shared a granola bar in the dark (romantic Valentine's Day dinner, eh?) and then tried to get a couple hours of sleep.
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We arrived in Madurai around 4AM and managed to find one hotel open, which was a little pricier (Rs 990) but was cleaner than the other places that we've stayed in. Instead of sleeping though, we showered and sat on the balcony and listened to the Muslim call-to-prayer. It was amazing to watch the city come to life!
At last the sun rose and we realized that we were both starving. Our hotel advertised room service and we had a menu in our room. So
Old hotel
Pondicherry we called and tried to order two breakfasts but were told to call back at 7AM. We tried again at that time but they pushed it back to 7:30 unless we wanted to come up to the restaurant. So we walked up there and discovered an open-air eatery with a perfect view of the Sri Meerakshi-Sundareshwara temple. We ordered two South Indian breakfasts. For Rs 50 we were stuffed full of good food, fresh juice, and hot coffee.
We thought we'd keep the ball rolling so instead of going back to the room to sleep, we headed straight to the temple. Sri Meenakshi-Sundareshwara is one of the largest temple complexes in India and was predominantly built between the 16th and 18th centuries, though some parts are older than that. The massive structures are covered in intricate carvings and there's one area that has over 1000 stone statues.
Apart from the temple, there isn't as much to see in Madurai as we had originally thought. After getting lost a couple of times walking through the crowds in mid-day heat, we decided to have kind of a siesta. We ate lunch at the hotel's restaurant and then spent the
rest of the day people-watching in the shade on our balcony or watching travel shows on TV. We attempted to book train tickets to Kochi in the evening but the computers at the nearby internet place weren't cooperating. Instead we decided to take an early bus a couple of days later to a town called Kumily, which is just outside a wildlife sanctuary.
I can't tell you the number of times that people have offered to sell us marijuana. And every staff member at the hotel tried to sell us beer -- even housekeeping!
We spent another day in Madurai, relaxing during the day and then attempted to see a sound and light show at the palace that night. Unsurprisingly, our guide books gave us the wrong information and we'd missed it. Not ready to retire, we instead headed to a funky bar called Apollo 96. The interior looks like the set of a sci-fi movie from the 1980's!
We had one last meal at our rooftop restaurant and then it was early to bed for we had to check out at 4AM. Many places in India have a 24-hour room use policy, which is nice sometimes
Morning reflections
A building/shrine across from our hotel but can throw off your schedule other times. At least that enabled us to catch the earliest bus to Kumily (6:20AM). Predictably, out of six people we asked, we got three different bus stall locations and five different departure times. The bus we actually needed didn't even pull into a stall! But we managed to get on and find some seats. Hooray! Roughly four hours later, after a rather scenic ride through plantations and then high hills, we arrived in Kumily.
We had barely walked five minutes when a man came up to us, intent that he had the perfect place for us to stay. We told him that we had another place in mind, but it turned out that they were on the same road and he agreed to show us both (his recommendation first, of course).
I'm incredibly glad that we met him though. He took us to a beautiful house, the upstairs having been converted into a homestay with three bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a balcony. It's only Rs 350 a night and so far we've got the place to ourselves!
Our new acquaintance, named Oosaka, is also an eco-tourism guide
and helped us arrange some activities to do during our stay here. He also educated us on some of the local plants and wildlife.
As Burt said, "I've never been so thankful for a shoddy internet connection." What began as a brief stopover on our way to Kochi has turned into a heavenly discovery that we don't want to leave. I'll post more soon!
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