Mamallapuram - Pondicherry - Chennai AGAIN

---

The monsoon rain was falling and we made ourselves to the bus station – which is about 7km outside of Chennai. So a bus there taking over 40 minutes and picking its way through the huge puddles that had formed from the nights rain fall, it was a total pain. Arriving at the bus terminus and finding out that there was no busses to Mamallapuram because the drivers didn’t want to drive along the roads – even though they were still going another 2 hrs further along the same road to Pondicherry??? After waiting for about an hr and talking to a few French travels – we boarded the bus. After seeing the sign for only 7km left of our journey – the bus pulls over to review a totally flat tyre and NO SPARE!!!??? The Indians are all mad! So basically we had to get off the bus and stand in the rain to wait for another bus gong our way and try and filer on that one! No chance with all our luggage and the other 50+ people doing the same thing. Luckily we teamed up with the other 3 travelers and jumped into a people carrier, which actually cost more money than the entire bus journey!!!
Arriving and looking at a possible 6 paces to stay – we opted for a big first floor room with a varanda at 350 rups a night. The rain was still chucking it down so we opted to start the sight seeing for the next day! The rain fell all night but reviled a fantastic morning and it was time to have a look about. There is a nice beach to have a sit about and also some nice monuments and rock formations that were also fantastic and detailed.
We stupidly went out without putting sun tan lotion and had to come back as we started to get burnt!!! But as this was our 1 month anniversary – we had decided that we should go and have a really nice dinner and as fish was a plenty, being b the sea, it was going to be a fish night.
They all sell the same sort of things and so we jumped into one that overlooked the street to do some people watching (its so funny watching the locals and the tourists actually). We had to bargain with the restaurant with what price to pay and after about 35mins two fish and ships came out. I say chips – it was more like 10 french fries each, and my fish was much bigger than Leah’s! We both thoroughly enjoyed it and made a nice end to a month of travelling together - another 7 to go!
Catching the bus to Pondicherry was easy enough and went without any problems at all and the weather seemed to be clearing! Arriving at our first location we were told that it was totally full – so onto the second we were met with some hostility by the hotel saying that they had rooms but that we had to abide by all the rules? This place was an ashram and so “no smoking-drinking or drugs allowed” and there were signs up everywhere stating “be kind to people” and “Obedience is the key to a healthy life” – I think that the unhelpful staff should have been reading these signs not us! The room was great and a balcony overlooking the sea was really good, although we could see that there was a storm bowing in!
Now Pondicherry is a French colonial town and so there are many places for a good baguette, pastry and coffee – but they charge an ram and a leg for it as it’s a very touristy place. We couldn’t not divulge in this play when we saw the cakes and chocolates (we could have been in France) so one afternoon we had coffee and cake!
There is not a great deal to see here but was nice to chill out and have a beer (there are no taxes on alcohol) so it was dirt cheap. We did actually sneak some cans into the room and have them one evening!!!! Very naught I know!
We were trying to head to Madurai but would have been a mission and it was going to only be a stepping stone for Kerala so we decided that it was best to go back to Chennai and train it straight there!

---