Two weeks ago (March 21 - 22) Melanie, Abdul (only Saturday), Jeannie (only Sunday) and me went to Pondicherry. This little town is a former French colony situated 120km to the south of Chennai and a favourite tourist destination. It still retains much evidence of its French history especially in the French Quarter called White Town (second part of town, Indian quarter, is called Black Town...I wonder why ;o)). You can find here small, calm, clean streets with nice little houses and you definitely don't feel like in India ;o)
Pondicherry is sought-after by Indian and non-Indian tourists especially because of its calm, nice beach promenade and cheap alcohol ;o) What do you think was the purpose of our visit? NOOO, it's not alcohol!!! It was a desire to get out ouf crowded noisy Chennai and relax a little bit with a glass of good vine (how naive we were ;o))
Our first goal was to find a cheap guest house. We didn't book any beforehand because we were sure there were many and we would be able to find one room. Ehm ehm, how naive again ;o) We spent more than one hour walking in terrible heat and looking for a free room. We stopped in a resto for lunch. It was tooo good! For Rs. 35 we got a whole meal with a lot of rice and many kinds of gravy. Moreover served on banana leaf, using only right hand...typical Indian lunch ;o)
Completely Indianized ;o)
With happilly full stomachs we set out for searching our hostel again. We found one for Rs. 650 with TV but without shower which I just couldn't accept. I was trying to bargain looking into the bath-room and switching disappointed and disgusted faces. However, with Melanie at my side it was not easy at all. She was like: "Come on, Petra, I don't mind there's no shower! 650 is a good price!" I was trying to explain here that this is not the best way of thinking in India. You have to bargain otherwise Indian shopkeepers and hotelkeepers will just eat you alive!!! Finally I convinced here to go and try to find another one. She must have hated me because we spent one more hour looking for it. Finally we found one hotel. It was quite expensive, but the guy told us that they had another one on the opposite side of town and that we could get a double room for 600 there. He even called an auto for us so we didn't have to bargain and get a very low price ;o) However, when we reached the place, the hotelkeeper was staring at us: "What, 600?!?! Are you people crazy?!?! That's what you find in those bloody guides, don't you?! You can't have a room for 600 in Pondicherry!!!" Abdul tried to bargain in tamil but the guy was quite stubborn so we left. And guess what happened? As soon as we left the hotel, a guy rushed out and was crying: "OK, OK, 600 for room!!!" Hooray! Mission accomplished ;o) So we got this nice room with TV and shower and I was happy. Just Melanie drived me crazy with her: "Oh, it's too nice, we should have paied more for it, I feel guilty." COMME ON!!! The hotel was completely empty! They could have been happy to have us there for 600!
So, we had a place to sleep and could finally start our Pondicherry exploration. First we went to a hand-made paper factory. It was really nice! We had a guided tour and saw all steps of paper fabrication. I have never seen so many different types of paper before! And what wonderful things these people are able to make from this paper using only natural materials and their hands!!! Well, unfortunatelly, we were not allowed to make pictures, so I can't show you. But you can trust me: it was really nice ;o)
Then we want to beach promenade and just relaxed.
Whow, this is very uncommon in India!
Two great thinkers! However, they didn't come up with that much ;o)
Road by the beach.
The beach
Mahatma Gandhi monument
In the evening, Abdul went back to Chennai and Jeannie arrived. When we went together for a dinner, we met a wedding procession. Weddings here are always so colourful!
The next day we just wandered around the town, visited a church, mosque and temple. It was a nice relaxing day. No more word are needed, just look at some pictures.
Beautiful house, though in quite a bad condition.
I wouldn't mind living in house like this ;o)
Even catholic churches are colourful (inside it was even "worse") here
Little mosque where we had a guided tour.
Very serious young ladies ;o)
And our favourite temple elephant
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