Pondicherry

My friend asked me if India is like I thought it was and the answer is NO but Pondicherry was.  Pondicherry is a little formerly French town (I think I have a thing for French colonies).   It has nice-ish roads with names like Rue de Bussy/something in Tamil (I figured out that's what they speak here) that lead directly to the beach.  The beach is distinctly Indian--you can't swim, and there's about ten feet of sand--and there is a really nice little French cafe called Le Cafe right on it.  I had a chocolate croissant (and died from happiness).

"Pondy" is also home to a gigantic ashram and community called Auroville which is, from what I can tell, seriously weird.  Pictures of "the Mother" creep you out at every corner.  She looks like a harmless, hungry old lady.  (All these great figures in India, they're all hungry.  That's all I think about when I look at them.)  The Mother had a vision of people living in harmony and that's what they do in Auroville.  They also make some fine handicrafts and I bought out the store.  My photos, if the box makes it home, are going to have to work hard to look as nice as the album I bought to put them in.

Some doofuses (cough cough my sister cough) think that Pondicherry is really Puducherry.  Technically, that is correct, but nobody here calls it that.  Pondy is much cuter than Pudy would be, anyway.

And to wrap up, let me talk about the white people I saw in Pondy.  We got three varieties.  

1--Old(er) women.  Ladies in my life, if you'd like to have a mid- to late-life crisis, go to Pondicherry and rent a motorcycle.  You'll fit right in.  

2--Father-son pairs (also seen in other parts of India) from Australia or New Zealand.  It must be a coming of age thing for cool people.  

3.  Nomadic youths of America and Europe who wear culottes and tank tops, spend time in Coffee.Com, and look really, truly, disgustingly hip.  

I have neither culottes nor a New Zealand father, so I guess my closest companions were the enlightened elderly.  But they mostly walk around in white clothing, so I stuck to the coffee shop and hoped some of the hip would rub off on me.  And in case you are wondering just how far I am willing to travel for a coffee shop, let me tell you--7 hours, and I don't regret one sweaty minute of it.

Ta ta for now!