Blog Number Four - Pondicherry

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So the enthusiasm on the catch up of the blog was very short lived. Is now 3 weeks since I wrote and I am only upto the 4th place! (only 21 entries behind!) I am now in the chilled relaxing Pushkar and have nothing to do for 4 days but sit on my balcony and watch the world go by. Pushkar is a very religious place so rammed full of temples and faux priests gunning for your tourist rupee. I am totally over the temple thing and attempted cons that go with it so after telling a few would-be-priests where to go and put their flowers, braclets and blessings yesterday (I am going to Hindu hell I am sure of it!) I have now decided to have a 3 day holiday where I have breakfast in bed, sit on my balcony all day watching birds fly about, kids fly kites that dance around the skyline and people chase rowdy monkeys off their roofs... and attempt to catch up on the blog!

20th October - 27th October 2008
Blog Number Four - a week 'stranded' in Pondi...

Pondicherry - Puducherry

So after a few days in the busyness and the madness of the gruby Chennai (which at the time I thought was an ok place to visit but after seeing the rest of India, it really was a dirty dump of a city that I will never go back to! If your coming to India don't bother going there!) We had our 5am wake up call. Got to the train station bright and early as we only had 2nd class seated tickets so no reserved seats so important to get there early and stake our claim. We found our platform and train and got ourselves sorted with time to spare, which was lucky as by the time the train left there were literally people sitting in the luggage racks above our heads. The train pulled out rammed full of commuters as the sun rose and the shanty towns surrounding the tracks woke up for the day ahead. Washing their clothes and bodies on the front doorsteps to the place they call home, cleaning their teeth and doing other things that you should not have to see just after you have had your breakfast! Everyone who has been to India knows 'the sight' that I am talking about, I can't bring myself to mention it tho I am sure that you all know what I am talking about! Other than 'that sight' the journey was rather nice. After we got out of the city we just had fields of grass and grazing cows, rice paddy fields, forests, and farmers working their land to look at. There were women out in the fields working away while the men sat around playing cards in the shade, and piles of freshly made mud bricks drying in the sun in massive pyramids.

We arrived in Puducherry/Pondicherry or Pondi as the locals affectionately call it and headed straight to find somewhere to stay. Got a place right on the beach just off the promenade with a balcony overlooking the ocean and with an icecream shop that did room service! What more could you want! After settling in and having the first of many icecream sundaes we went for a walk down the promenade and zig zagged our way through the streets of the old town. Pondi was formerly a French colony so still has a bit of a European feel to it along with long avenues and rues to stroll down. On our wanderings we picked up a stray dog, who I named Masala, he was a great dog who followed us around for about 2 hours and everytime someone came to sell us something or any beggars would approach he would bark at them. He also joined us again 2 days later. He was a good dog and I would totally recommend getting yourself one for the whole of India to scare the rif raf away! We spent the next two days just chilling out, writing post cards and wandering around looking at everything but nothing in particular. We wandered through the local market looking at beautiful fresh fruit and veg, colourful clothes and saris, kitch looking jewelry and bangles, and unfortunately butchers, with live animals (ek! But I guess at least you know that it is fresh!) and the worst smelling fish market I have ever been to in my life! Add to that the background hum of a million flies sitting on all the fish and you get why I am now going fully vegetarian for the rest of the trip!!!! We saw a bunch of temples and mosques and mainly just spent a lot of time just watching people go about their daily thing. On day 3 we thought that we better make a plan for leaving onto the next place and found that we couldn't get a train for 4 more days. After an initial panic we decided that there were worse places you could get stuck in for a week so then spent the rest of the day planning the next month of travel ahead and booked our train tickets for all the places we were visiting in Tamil Nadu and Kerala onl the way to Goa. Also spent a few hours watching the locals walk up and down the promenade. Oh while I remember, another thing for the crazy things that Indian people do list. Stand on the rocks by the promenade, men fully clothed and women in saris and get splashed by the pounding waves in the middle of winter. It is totally mad. Ok I know that it is still 30 degrees but most of them are wearing jumpers! why would you stand and get smashed by the waves in your clothes?!?!

So after 3 days of doing very little we decided to get off our buts and do the tourist things. We started off by heading for kasha ki aasha which is an old colonial house that has a roof top cafe upstairs, a bunch of market like stalls downstairs and the best pancakes I have ever had in my life! Drizzled in honey with Banana Jam!!! ahhh bliss!(to good to have only once I think we went back there 3 times in a week!) We wandered past the main mosque in the city that was beautifully painted and well cared for, we had a peak from the outside but didn't attempt to go in and then went to the catholic church which was fantastic. I really like the way that the Indian Catholics go about their thing. My memories of catholic churches everywhere else I have been to in the world is all very serious but here every thing is bright and colourful and kitch. They even had the 'best quote' and profile on various walls and monuments for each of the apostles. Love it! St. John... Son of Zebedee and Salome, fisherman, brother of St James, also called sons of thunder! Best quote 'I am the light of the world”. It was quite a giggle.

We then went to the botanical gardens or should I say former botanical gardens, that looked like they had been abandoned for quite a few years. The ticket booth selling 100 rupee tickets to foreigners looked like it would be overlooked by the homeless it was that run down! Also got lost looking for the bus station and wandered into 'the wrong part of town' which wasn't so much dodgey but stunk worse than anything I have ever smelt before in my entire life! Checked out the Auroville shop and information centre. Auroville
is an international living experiment set up by 'the mother' in 1968 where people could live in peace and harmony above all creeds, politics and nationalities. There were people representing 124 countries that came together to live in the community, they all brought soil from their countries that they poured into an urn to symbolise universal oneness. The place is still going and you can visit but you have to pay a fortune to stay there and you have to work during your stay. Seeing as I am retired, I wasn't planning on paying to go back to work, so we gave it a miss. Tbh she sounds like a bit of a wack job! She claims that she has transcended this life form and is the beginning of the next evolutionary race or something equally out there... google her I am sure that it is all there!

Most evenings we wandered around town to and from dinner. Most cities in India seem to come alive at night. Markets pop up everywhere, selling all kinds of everything. Whole
families come out and wonder the streets picking up a few bargains. They all dress there girls in bright dresses that are truly awful, they kinda remind me of the dress up clothes that you buy for kids, but more hideous. And they put so much eye liner on them that they all look like they have black eyes. Also they all put these squeaky toy shoes on them so all you hear as you are walking around is 100's of kids running around squeaking with every step. Add to this the pre diwalli madness of selling fireworks and you have complete mayhem with kids letting off fireworks everywhere. Not to be missed really. I decided that I had to buy my niece a hideous bright dress and a pair of squeaky shoes, just to test how long they take to drive my sister and brother-in-law up the wall! Could be an interesting belated Christmas come January!

I would have to say that Pondi was a great place to stay for a week and definitely my favorite of the trip up until this point, the people were really nice and friendly, the town was beautiful and chilled and everything was really easy. A great place to be 'stranded' for a week! I would totally recommend it.

Again for those of you not on facebook... here are links to my photos that I have posted for Pondi
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84060&l=63e30&id=528670733

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=86186&l=7f9b0&id=528670733

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