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Published: January 19th 2007
I've got so much to say, I don't know where to start.
On Sunday Me + Colin met up with Claire and Catherine from a nearby placement and we all went to Pondicherry together. On the way we had lunch at our placement principal's house as he invited us and we want to get on his good side. We had the tedious meeting of his family etc. and had a decent lunch, but I'm becoming very surprised by the Indian's attitude to alchohol. Every guide you read says it is frowned upon, but a week or so back Colin borker his 6 month no drinking resolution under Maria's insistence, and the principal and his family clearly had the intention of getting us under the table, as between 4 of us there were 4 600ml bottles of beer and 2 500ml bottles of brandy. We only got through 1 bottle of beer between us so's to act polite because we had no intention of drinking too much with an hour's bus journey left, and they were all positively shocked. All very surprising.
Anyway, once we got to Pondicherry we found a nice quiet guest house just out of town and near the beach - it had a proper toilet which is always a bonus, and it had a lovely cheap restaurant where we mainly ate. Because of the strong French influence around Pondicherry we were able to get Chocalate Crepes at our guesthouse, which made us happy. Indeed we had bland food whilst out there (apart from one meal). This was a nice change. After being awoken by drums at 4 in the morning to celebrate Pongol (which resulted in Colin screaming some funny remarks about Indians) Monday was spent being lazy, relaxing on the beach, mucking about in the sea and playing cards. Then we had a really nice stroll dwn the beach at dusk when the tide was pretty high. The sea seemed somewhat more powerful at that time, and it was pretty cool.
Then the week all went downhill. I was awoken at about midnight by the sound of Colin being sick, it must have been when he went in the sea. When your stomach's not good it's not really possible to take a 3 hour crowded, bumpy bus without a lot of discomfort, so we ended up getting a taxi back to Kanji, which came to about 12 quid between us. Considerably more than the 70p on the bus, but not bad value for 200km! It meant I missed the chance to see the city, which is a shame beacause it looked lovely. It was vibrant like Chennai without all the slums and squalor, although there was still some poverty on show, as there is everywhere. There were lots of palm trees and plants about and the city looked very green, I wouldn't mind the chance to see it properly, but the ill person makes the decisions. We then took Wednesday very easy (I found it quite boring actually) and Colin was feeling fine by Thursday, where we went back into school to discover that no other volunteers were about and Maria was gone aswell, and we found out pretty late that we had to take several lessons. It was pretty tough.
Today we've got the day off to go into Bangalore for Colin's birthday, where we're meeting Nicole, Eileen, Karen and Miriam. I'm not too sure if Nicole booked us a room like I asked (my phone's not working so I couldn't ring, I can still receive calls though), but we'll end up on their floor if need be, you never get much sleep with Nicole and Colin in close proximity anyway, they both get very loud and never want to stop mucking around at 1 in the morning! It should be fun. Hopefully we'll both feel fine this time round and won't feel so worried about travelling again, we're both quite apprehensive at the mo.
One more thing, registering is almost done after a very long slog, but I've got to go back in on Tuesday and am now fed up of Indian bureaucracy!
All the best.
Rob.
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Graham
non-member comment
Gosh
Gosh, Rob, it all sounds so interesting. Good to hear you have had to do some teaching as well! I hope Colin doesn't suffer again.