Indian Friday: The Many Faces of Pondicherry

My diary, revived from my trip to India back in 2007. This second part details my solo travels during the last three weeks or so.

The Many Faces of Pondicherry

Thursday 29th November.

I was very greedy today! Up early to get the cool of the day, and found myself passing ‘Just Bread’.  I thought I couldn’t leave Pondicherry without having a continental breakfast, so I did.  Orange juice, pain au chocolat and coffee.  Good actually. The only problem was that I’d ordered the hotel breakfast the night before, so I made an attempt at the (very good) potato-stuffed paratha and sambal, but didn’t finish it.  Which didn’t go down well.  Hence no lunch.

I walked up to the Botanical Gardens.  Sheffield they’re not, but they’re not bad either and I had a pleasant wander.  Coming away, boy it was hot, and I tried to cut corners and go down side streets to get to MG Road (Mahatma Gandhi Road). I kept on going down dead ends, and while it was interesting, it was also embarrassing to be down the Gip (a then down-trodden area of Leeds). I hated seeming like a voyeur.

 In consequence, I got totally lost – I was well outside the French Quarter. When I finally fetched up on a main road I had no idea where I was and decided to get a rick.  Just as well, I was miles off route.  I asked him to take me to Mission Street/Nehru Road cross, and once there, I spotted some bag shops, so I got a wheelie suitcase! Hooray!  Hooray! (My large rucksack had been getting increasingly stuffed and unwieldy).  He was a nice guy, and measured it to see if it fitted hand luggage regs, and it did.  By the way, I forgot. I went to the market early this morning and it as so different from Mysore – just people getting on with life and not a tout in sight – mind you, it was only just after 8.00 o’clock. Just one incident, pictured below.

The buffalo who peed over my feet in the market.

The fish market, like so many parts of the market here in India, was often people selling just a few small fish- a bucketful.  Not really the same as France I think, where you might choose instead to have a small corner to sell your strings of garlic, and your small amount of tomatoes or onions.

Anyway, after the suitcase, I also bought a salwar kameez – I am so hot!  And back for a break, and a chat with the chain-smoking French woman who has my original room.  I really couldn’t share a car with her to Chennai, which is where, like me, she’s off to next.

A few random sightings whilst out and about.

I wandered off after non-lunch to change money.  Ha! ‘No, we are not changing money after 2.00 p.m.’  So I went to an agent and did it – a good rate actually.  Best yet. Suddenly I couldn’t face walking home, rickshawing home – anything.  I asked a posse of rickshaw drivers how much to the beach, and we struck a deal.  After we’d set off, I asked my driver which beach he recommended and he turned round and headed about 8km. north, near Auroville.  The beach was indeed lovely – not crowded.  Very sandy and palm-tree-ish, and I really wished I’d bought a cozzie with me. I settled for sitting on a dead boat, and gazing out to sea.  Oh, and collecting a few shells (I still have them on the chest of drawers at home). 

After an hour, the driver, who had waited for me, brought me home and I packed quite a lot in the wheelie suitcase (Yes! Yes!).  Further chat with the French woman wanting to go with me to Chennai (No! No!) and also to one of Cristelle’s staff.  He speaks French and says there are no longer any French-medium schools in Pondicherry.  He – and I guess he’s 40-ish – is the last generation not to be educated in English.  What a shame.

I walked to the Bay of Bengal to say ‘Goodbye’and off to the Rendezvous for a meal.  I’m here now.

Later, I added this:I’m beginning to lose momentum, mainly through extreme tiredness, and the heat combined with dripping humidity. I’m greatly looking forward to another CouchSurfing weekend in Chennai this time. I think the experience will be very different from last time, if only because my host is much nearer to me in age, and born and bred in India.

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Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

36 thoughts on “Indian Friday: The Many Faces of Pondicherry”

  2. Perhaps I need a salwar kameez. I do get tired of the permanently soggy feeling unless I’m by the sea. And I hear you on the pull along. Our hand luggage is holdall style and will be properly annoying over the next couple of weeks. So very accommodating, your rickshaw driver. All very different from the current lifestyle, Margaret. Have fun with the family xxxx

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    1. Fun with the Family is the exhausting order of the day. I’ve got up at 6.00 especially to catch up with emails. Oh yes, holdalls. No good at all. I took one for my last Spanish visit. Nightmare. xx

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    1. I thought no bad luck would come from the peeing incident. I certainly had a good time in Pondicherry. And yes, cobbles and wheels not good. But I needed the extra space, and that was the solution.

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  6. Amazing Margaret, I am enjoying your trip and I would’ve been annoyed with the water buffalo, I can only imagine my wife’s reaction! Traveling is uncomfortable enough without high humidity and heat. But it is always better to sit down, relax, and take it all in for even just a bit. Enjoy your visit with your family and keep making those days count.

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    1. I wasn’t annoyed by the water buffalo! A different kind of travelling experience. The journey was beginning to take is toll, energy-wise. Just as I’m rather exhausted now, but in a good way, by my grandchidren!

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  8. I can well understand how the heat and humidity would drain you! I often wonder why, after inventing the wheel thousands of years ago, it took us so long to think of attaching some to a suitcase?!

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  13. Second breakfast – that reminds me of the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings. Of course, they wouldn’t have given up halfway through ;-). I actually prefer a backpack or even shoulder back over a wheeled suitcase. There are always lots of places where you can’t wheel it and it’s unhandy to carry. Heat and humidity can be challenging. How long had you been in India at that point?

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    1. I normally preferred a backpack too. But by then I’d gone and acquired so many odds and ends that I neded something more, and another backpack wasn’t an option! So a wheelie case to take the heavy stuff was a gift from the gods. I’d been in India about 3 weeks by then.

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