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Published: November 27th 2009
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Thursday, Nov 26th - Kaniyakumari & Pondicherry
Yesterday morning I finally left Varkala beach. It was definitely about time. The place is nice and chilled and stuff, but you sometimes just gotta move on, cause all the convenience can get suffocating. Don’t really know, if that sounds logical, but I think everyone who travels, knows exactly what I’m talking about.
So yesterday morning I left to take a train to get all the way down south to Kaniyakumari, the southernmost point of India. On the first train I found out, why there are railings besides the doors: So you can hold on to them, when the train is jammed-packed not to fall off the train. Get kinda hard with a backpack on my back, but I survived :-) No, sounds more dramatic than it actually was. After three hours I reached Kaniyakumari. The town itself is no architectural masterpiece. But the temples there are very much worth seeing. The town is a super- important Pilgrims town for Hindus and I was very glad, to be back at ‘normal’ India, even if that meant people wanting to take pics of me constantly. For sunset I went to a point, from which
you can watch the sun set in the ocean and rise again, if you wait long enough. It is also the point where three oceans meet. Well, couldn't really see that :-)
At night my overnight train to Villupuram left. It’s hard to describe what Indian sleeper coaches are like, so I had someone take a photo. I met this rally interesting girl from the US on the train. She’s been working and living in India for the past couple of years. It was very interesting what she told me about the cast system, prearranged marriage and stuff. Speaking of which: the other day I was actually thinking about that whole ‘find the right person for your life’-topic. I tried to kinda see it from a different angle. If you know, this is the person you need to spend the rest of your life with, doesn’t that also make a lot of things easier. If the choice is taken away from you, the search is also obsolete. And I feel, that’s what lots of people spend a considerate amount of time with. If you know, this is the person chosen for you, do you work harder to make it
work??? I’m not saying, prearranged marriages are a good thing. I just wondered, why there are so many unhappy marriages in the western culture. I feel like choice is not always positive, cause then you automatically strive for bigger and better and are never happy with what you have. I’d totally include myself here. And it’s not only about the choice of the partner, but pretty much every choice there is to make. It eats up a whole lot of time, just to think about, e.g. which king of chocolate you wanna buy, or which T-Shirt or whatever - you get the picture. And again, I don’t approve of prearranged marriage, it just made me think…
Anyways, so after a pretty short and exhausting night on the train I got to Villupuram this morning at around six. Took the bus to Pondicherry. It’s a former French colony and most of the street names are French and you actually hear Indians speaking French here. Well, first thing here I got ripped off by a Rickshaw driver - again. This kinda belongs to traveling through India I guess. If you ever come here- Rule: never ever under any circumstances trust a
rickshaw driver. I mean, I like taking the rickshaw, they’re great to get around, but some drivers are just a**holes, that think they can charge you pretty much anything, cause you’re a tourist. I just ended up yelling at the driver and actually made him stop and got off at the point where I actually wanted to go and not where he wanted to take me (about 15 km away). Found a decent room for 200 INR, which isn’t too bad, considering, prices are pretty French here :-) Though, I don’t know if you can actually consider this a room- it reminds me more of a shoebox, especially since room, actually implies room as in space. But I have my own bathroom (more the size of a jewelry box) and it’s clean and central. And my multi purpose sarong premiers as curtains.
The town itself is awesome. First of all, there is a pretty big and famous Ashram in town. They offer a lot of activities and have some Ashram owned shops where they sell cute stuff. The so-called French quarter is pretty quiet and seriously looks like it was taken from some small town in France. On the
other hand, the town is super busy (as every Indian town), but in a nice way. Explored the local markets today and went to a public Meditation from the Ashram. What I really like about Tamil Nadu so far, is that there actually are women on the streets everywhere. So I feel a lot more comfy walking all over places. Will look for Yoga classes tomorrow. I feel very peaceful and quiet here and I’m just very glad I came here, regardless of whom I might meet or not meet here. No expectations - no stress…
Ok, gotta get some serious sleep now. Will post this tomorrow!
Hugs!
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