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Published: October 7th 2006
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beach attire
it doesn't get sexier than this. This was supposed to be Moria's blog entry, but since dysentery has gotten the best of her and is coming out of both ends I must write in her place. Please forgive me because this is going to be a long one.
Since our last entry we have been holidaying on the east coast of India and bathing in the Bay of Bengal. Although the water is not very clean it is nice and warm. We started our stint here with a ten hour bus ride from Bangalore to the former French colony of Pondicherry. The bus ride was not much fun for any of us but we made it through. I am beginning to think that here in India there is no such thing as road safety. Our bus was probably made in 1967 and I would say it hadn't had an oil change in ten years. The seats were so close to each other that they were no bigger than a kindergartener and the seat padding was non-existent. Luckily, we had seats unlike the twenty odd people who were sitting and lying on the floor for the bumpiest ride of my life. As with all our other bus
our new best friend
chillin' with thomas. we're a package deal. rides we were situated on the wheels. Now, I am not the best passenger in buses and suffer from motion sickness so you can imagine my delight at being placed on the wheels. Also, you have to remember that we are on the southeast coast of India and it was hit by the Tsunami very hard. The roads were destroyed. So picture us riding in a hot, uncomfortable bus that has no shocks driving over moguls. It was a far from pleasant experience. I was awake for the entire journey, but I fared better than Lucy who had two people leaning on her the entire bus ride. Moria was the luckiest of all as she was able to sleep for some of the bumpy ride. After ten hours we arrived in beautiful Pondicherry.
Pondicherry's motto is "forget about time" and it was easy enough to do there. The cool ocean breeze and French patisseries made us all forget that we were in India for a few days. We also made some new Indian friends. After a delicious dinner we headed to the Rough Guide's hot spot in Pondy, Santsanga, where our waiter, Richard, befriended us. His English was good
Butterball with Lucy and Moria
They try their luck at pushing over the gagillion ton boulder. but he had a terribly thick Tamil accent. We all estimated that we understood about sixty percent of what he said and in that we got an invite to the beach. All of us were pretty skeptical about the whole thing so opted not to call him the next morning. This idea didn't seem to work out too well in such a small place as Pondy because as we were leaving our shopping spree of mui mui's and house dresses to bathe in we ran into him on the street and he said he was waiting for us. In the end we decided he was harmless and agreed to join him.
Little did we realize that he had a friend that was going to join us as well. The friend was Arun and he was a cool rider with a badass motorbike. Moria and I rode with Richard in a tuk tuk while Lucy had the privelege of going on the motorbike. It has to be said, Lucy looked uber cool on that hog! For our tuk tuk ride Richard told us how the beach was free and we could wear anything or nothing in the water because no one was there and we could do what we wanted. Moria and I took it that he wanted us to get naked. We told him we were in India and were going to respect their culture. Needless to say he was not too happy with our decision.
By the time we arrived to "Paradise Beach" Moria and I had had enough of Richard and his third grade behaviour but we were stuck on an island with him and couldn't get rid of him. It was actually quite amusing to watch us because every time he tried to get two steps closer we ran four or five steps away. This seemed to be the theme of the afternoon until somehow Richard managed to rest his leg on Moria's knee. Lucy and I could not keep it together and lost it laughing while Moria proceeded to ask Richard how to say "help me" in Tamil. Once again he didn't get the hint. After a few more hours in the surf and sun we cleaned up and headed to dinner and the party that Arun was throwing for us.
Apparently in Tamil Nadu party means: Lucy, Kate and Moria. The party consisted of the three of us Arun and his sketchy friend that I can't remember the name of. The party was at sketchy's house. His house was on the roof of a commercial building in downtown Pondy and it included a swimming pool, garden, bird sanctuary, bachelor pad and servant. I am not kidding here. I think the servant was what made us most uncomfortable about the whole evening. This was largely because we couldn't tell what sketchy was saying to him but he didn't speak to him in a nice tone and seemed to be constantly putting the poor boy in his place. I was not a fan of sketchy. Luckily, sketchy left shortly after we arrived. The bad thing was Richard arrived shortly after sketchy left. The rest of the evening consisted of dance party Pondicherry which was more like a version of hot potato as Moria and I were seeing which one of us could dance away from Richard the fastest. After two hours of this Moria did her best performance of faking sick. All I can say is that she will not win an Oscar any time soon as she laughed through the entire delivery and just made Richard and Arun think we were making fun of them. But it was enough to get us out of there and back to our hotel.
The next day we went to Mammallapurum. This is a hippy backpacker haven. We saw some amazing stone carvings. There are a bunch of Hindu temples that depict the nine stages of Vishnu with the last being Buddha. I keep getting them all confused but I am so intrigued by Hinduism. I like how their is a balance and a connection between the spiritual world and natural world. Anyway, we were in awe of Krishna's butterball - a boulder that must be 1,000 tons - because many have tried to move it without success. Apparently the British tried to get 14 elephants to push it off the rock face and they failed too. The three of us didn't have much success either.
We had some great seafood and met up with Arun and a new friend, Thomas, while in Mamma. Thomas was great because he explained the world of Indian dating to us by saying that Indian girls are the worst but that he does want to fall in love and expects that should only take a month. Who knew? His insights into the world of South Asian dating provided us all with much enlightenment. He told us that a good marriage is one where the woman does the washing one day and the man does it the next time. You can imagine the numerous morsels of wisdom he gave us. We appreciated his company much more than Richard's and were delighted that Arun left Richard in Pondy.
Today started out fine, but when we were getting ready to head to the bus for our journey to Kerala dysentery got the best of Moria. She is a trooper though and wanted to go on the bus. Lucy and I put our feet down when she started hurling at the train station. So we are in Mamma for one more night before going to Kerala for some more beach time and the backwaters. Hopefully, Moria will be feeling better in the morning and will be writing an entry for you to enjoy in the near future.
My apologies to you all for my terrible English and lack of punctuation, my editor is out sick today.
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karen kenna
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Back Waters
Dear All, As pretty as it is and as much as you may want to DO NOT swim in the water in the Back Waters; save your swimming for the beach. Kerala's pretty laid back, so take the time (if you can) to rest and get your strength back. P.S. - Do you take a dose of pepto bismal every morning? It helps. P.P.S. -Be sure to visit the beach at night to see the phosphorecense in the waves. Amazing!! --K.K. in hotlanta