catch up

so much has happened since the last post i dont quite know where to start. we left tiru monday night,our plans to leave earlier having been thwarted by the laundryman, who is as we have heard by rumor also the man to see should one want any manner or prostitute or drug situation. we finally got out of the door around 6 pm and headed to the bus station. as fate would have it we caught one of the private buses to tindyavanam. sounds nicer right...private as opposed to public not the case. this bus in particular was a favorite of all of the villagers as it stopped in ALL of the little towns on the way. so the busride that was supposed to take only an hour and a half ended up taking three hours. not to mention that the bus was packed..im talking a two and a half times what the bus should have been able to accomodate all standing or sitting uncomfortably...im told this is the way the indians like to travel, fulfills some preternatural herd instinct, i just felt like the bologna on an overpacked meat sandwich. we made it eventually to our destination, a pit stop on the side of the road as it were, there was a guy face down on the side of the road either dead drunk or just plain dead. we waited around a good half hour and caught the next bus to our final destination of pondicherry. this bus was considerably better although i did end up standing for 40 minutes of the 45 minute busride.

we arrived in pondicherry at 9:45 giving us just enough time to find suitable accomodation. we had intended on staying at the garden guest house right off (a super cheap joint, 70 rs a night, as it is generally only for devotees of the sri aurobindo ashram located in pondi), but were thwarted by the lack of vacancy therein, so wandered about for another 30 minutes until coming upon a much less cheap hotel that we decided to hang our hats in. pondicherry was generally delightful, having been set up as a french colony early on it boasts a much stronger infrastructure than most indian cities, and also carries with it all manner of fantastic french cuisine as well as proper bread and pastries. we gorged the first day on shrimp and mushroom crepes, fish soup and beer for lunch and grilled fish for dinner, all of course had at indian prices. the rest of the time in pondi was spent mostly with this woman that aaron had met on a previous stint there.

a trip of an old lady, claire is 62 years old, smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish couldnt warm takeout without a maids help, and is a well read devotee of sri aurobindo(on the outs with much of the rest of the ashramites). we spent our mornings eating idly and chiding about this and that, went and saw her magnificent garden in the late afternoon (more a forest really, or the beginning of one at least) and went toe to toe with her and a case of beer in the evening.

we left pondi thursday in the early afternoon, bringing us to our current location, a stones thrown from the beach at the ramakrishna guesthouse in mamallapurum. we were ucky enough to catch the drowning of the ganpati (it was ganeshas birthday last sunday, so they made a lot of likenesses and then drowned these "ganpati" in whatever water was available, here it being the ocean, on thursday) it was a wild scene indians flailing about in the water....a number of giant spiny puffer fish looking things washed up and were being regailed about by indian boys. (pictures to come at a later date)

we spent the rest of the evening wandering around the beach and retired late in the evening.

this brings us to today save the slight hiccup in our sleeping pattern caused by the giant lightning strike that almost started a fire not 15 yards from our room.