Sun, Sea, Coffins and the search for Zen

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After spending a week in Varkalla on its amazing beach set against red cliffs LN and I decided it was time to move on with the "real India". Welcome to the overnight sleeper train, which might as well have been sold under the title coffin. I don't think I had ever experienced the chest-tightening fear known as claustrophobia before last night. After a few seconds of deep breathing I got over it, but the next 10 hours were anything but relaxing. No, at 3:30am I don’t appreciate being woken up and asked if I want some chai. Was it my earplugs and attempt at sleep that tipped you off that I want to buy some caffeine?

Feeling a little worse for wear at 5am the next morning we arrived in Madurai where we were supposed to be catching a bus to Pondicherry. In the midst of the usual argument over price with a rickshaw driver, possibly the most relaxed non-India I have encountered so far in India walked at a casual pace towards us. I don’t know what this guy was on, but he was so Zen at 5am it was scary. And he told us he loved night trains. I’m starting to get the feeling I should spend some time at an ashram to connect with my inner peace. Anyway, 9 hours, two buses and 1.5 horrible Tamil movies (one set in Russia and the other in Oz, both containing many non-sequencer dance scenes and played at full blast to ensure no sleeping) later we roll into Pondi, realizing that all we have eaten over the past 48 hours is breakfast the day before, a piece of cake and 4 veggie pakoras (plus some mint dipping sauce). Another 2 hours later we managed to find a mediocre at best guest house and set out for some food. At which point I experienced a food blackout only realizing I ate when I looked down to see my plate empty.

Pondi is an old French colony, with some beautiful architecture, a green park and a nice boardwalk along the sea. There seem to be mostly more expensive very nice places to stay all along the water and then a whole bunch of ashrams which are all full at the moment due to a famous yogi being in town. All in all a very nice place to spend a few days. It is also very close to Auroville which is an international community of sorts that was set up in India so I think I will be going to check that out.

Back to Varkala for a minute though, it was the first time since Egypt that I saw people straight up giving the police a "bakseesh" in order to continue business as usual. It seems most places don’t have liquor licenses but there seems to be an understanding that as long as the restaurants pretend to be worried and show respect to the police by hiding the bottles and turning off the music when they walk by, the cops are happy to take a little gift to turn a blind eye. That, and the fact that the beach is full of near-naked sunbathers makes me think that its probably one of the better places to work.

I also just finished "Shantaram" and "Are you Experienced?" which are both books about India but as my brain is feeling somewhere between a scrambled and soft boiled egg that will have to wait for now.

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