Advertisement
Pondicherry
Like any other Indian market town. Ok, so I’m still in search of a beach. My guidebook led me to believe that the ex-French colony of Pondicherry would be full of French hippies tanning themselves on a sandy beach whilst sipping coffee and munching on croissants. No surprise then that Pondi became a pressing call on my journey South. So I booked 3 nights in the superbly named Hotel Jayaram :o), packed my bikini and thanks to Brett, Mark and Jim a couple of good books for a little r & r.
The C18th French influence is obvious - with old-style colonial buildings, wide boulevards and French street names. However that’s just the French quarter. Most of the rest of the town is as hectic as any other Indian market town. It’s a good 40 min walk through the usual craziness of Indian city streets. Cars, bicycles, scooters and motorbikes (often carrying 3 at a time) all hoot to indicate, using circus-clown style hooters not too dissimilar from Team History’s very own horn sound in the Noisy Noughties.
When you get to the beach, St Tropez, it’s not. In fact there is no beach. Families picnic on the rocks and stand around watching the waves
crash into the shore as lads push each other off precarious rocks.. Seeing the sea is always good for the soul and it’s a great respite from the hooting, honking and begging of downtown Pondi. But it looks like my bikini will stay packed for a little while longer.
However it gave me the chance to wander around and talk to people as well as enjoying an old-style gin and tonic in the cooling shade of Hotel de L’Orient, which claims to ‘take you back in time’. There are currently state elections in Tamil Nadu and though I can’t make much of it all, there are jubilous election parades and I have gathered that one man has been arrested for bribing voters with rice. Jayalalithaa is the General Secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Jayalalithaa and has promised more
* Engineering colleges
* IT companies
* And dental, medical and nursing colleges.
She seemed fairly popular in Mamallapuram, however one man here told me she was a ‘dragon lady’, and then offered to introduce me to his son-in-law who was a ‘top surgeon’ in London.
The other stuff that’s going on
Lads
It's the same the world over... was that the Janata Party General Secretary was gunned down by his younger brother. No one knows quite why but his funeral yesterday was attended by “VVIPs, political leaders and workers and others” . The Hindu also carried the news that a 4 year old boy from Orissa ran for 7.02 hours covering a distance of 65km. The Hindu is a daily that included a children’s news section. Hidden amongst the gems of news such as 131 year old turtle and a passing eagle, I was taken aback to read about The Bodleian library -though I’m sure Cri will be pleased to see that Indian kids are encouraged to learn about Oxford paleography, and a debate on the funding of sickle cell research. Kids these days, eh?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.175s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 16; qc: 71; dbt: 0.1074s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Rachel
non-member comment
Hello
Hey, tis me again!!! Just saying hey about to go to grans. Mention me again. love you xxxxxxx