I had less time than I had thought...

... continuing from the last entry...

so yeah. Where was I. We went to Pondicherry, and it was nice: you could walk down the street without being hassled by vendors (as much) or nearly hit by something moving much faster than you, which seems to be the norm everywhere else.

And because of that, everything was more expensive (but still not anywhere near expensive).

(and the French people we talked to completely poo-pooed the idea of any tourist ever going to Chennai, which was funny. But we could see where they were coming from. If Christoph and I were on our own in that city, it would really be no fun at all. At least until you got it sorted out, which I can imagine would take weeks just doing that.)

This is what a bit of the beach looked like (not at all like Chennai, but for the people):



and



As usual, when we were there, there was some festival or protest or celebration or religious ceremony or demonstration or frankenstein monster-hunt (some had torches lit) or something else like that involving a lot of people converging on some public space, and as usual, we had no idea what was going on. We turned the opposite direction and had dinner on western time, that is, around 7 instead of the customary 9 or 10 pm indian time. So it was not crowded at all.

This dinner was at the fanciest restaurant we could find... though not entirely on purpose - it was written about in our book as having a very interesting blend of Tamil and French flavors in a basically pretty high-class way. So us, sunburned and dirty t-shirted (they were washed until that day, but it doesn't seem to take that long to get a bit ratty looking. and still, they were t-shirts. I think mine had a picture of a big green dinosaur on it, so no, we were not dressed up.) This place was really nice, and we spent about as much as a normal dinner would cost at, oh, say Chili's. Which is a dern lot over here, especially for food. And it was good. I got Saffron Crab and Christoph got the grilled fish.. and and we both got appetizer salads, special Indian beer, and fancy chef's-special ice-cream desserts. It was very good - but I don't know if I wouldn'tve been just as happy spending 1/10 the amount just down the road at a normal Indian place (even at the hotel, where earlier that day we had a fantastic lunch served on a banana leaf with 9 different dishes, all for 45 rupees each, which is about 1.10 USD).

We are a big fan of the food here in general, let me tell you. Christoph said that the food alone was worth the cost of the plane ticket over, and all the sight-seeing and other stuff we're doing is just bonus on top of that.. and it's hard not to agree.

Then we had a leisurely breakfast the next morning, having french coffee, croissants, and omelettes (true, not very Indian after all I just said, but still). Total cost: about 2 USD each. So basically, yeah, we splurged a bit on that too. (Christoph and I still can't really tell the difference between breakfast foods and lunch and dinner foods here, and that morning we really felt like a "breakfast" as we know it.. especially the coffee at that french place was fantastic.)

After we had eaten, it was off to Gingee Fort, pronounced Sen-gee by everybody, which took us a little while to figure out.

The bus ride over there, about 2 hours away from Pondicherry, cost about 1USD each.

- I don't know why I'm writing out the prices of everything in this post. The remarkability of how low the costs can be of some things here never really wore off for me. Other things, like electronics, are about the same. Gas and a few other things that slip my mind cost even more than I'm used to. But good food and travel are really things I value very much, pretty much more than anything, and those are really the cheapest things around here.

Gingee was absolutely stunning. Amazingly beautiful, I already want to go back (especially now that I learned that people are allowed to climb the tallest hill, but it takes hours one way so a whole day is needed. You'll see what I mean).

from the top of the smaller hill:




the smaller hill itself:



another scene (one that makes me think I don't really need to go to Greece anymore):



and the big hill (that we didn't go up, but should next time):



Keep in mind that all of the farmland in these pictures is technically within the fort walls. The fort itself is incredible. As I think I say in a picture caption somehwhere, imagine 3 Edinburgh castles on 3 massive hills connected by ancient 40-foot thick walls, and then put another big fort/city inside those walls. Just incredible stuff. Of course, now it's not used and it's mostly rice and banana plantations. But supposedly it was used as recently as by the British, but I forgot when.

Then we went back home that night.

But before that! (sorry for the jumpiness of my train of thought here..) Walking around the town of Gingee... you'd think that they would be used to tourists, even have things aimed at tourists because of the fort being in walking distance from town, right? wrong! It was a dusty, somewhat xenophobic rural Tamil town. At least the kids seemed to act like they'd never seen a white person before, and (some of them) were thrilled. Here's a picture Christoph took on the way up to the fort:



we met this same crew plus about 10 friends or relations on the way back - at first some called out, calling for more to come talk with us, and little kids as small as probably 2 years old in little yellow dresses would stagger on over to say hi. and let me tell you, I have never seen eyelashes bat as fast as that girls standing the back. (I guess we made a good impression?)

SO they were charming at least. And all they really seemed to want from us was our attention (and maybe a chance to practice their english), which was nice.

Annnyhoo... I'm typing up late in bed and I think Christoph would appreciate it if I turned off the light, so I'm calling it a night.

Tomorrow I may or may not have a chance to talk about Kanchipuram, the silk-weavers, bird-sanctuary, and.. uh... whatever else we may have done by then.

AND: I feel like I've mostly just been talking about what we've been doing here, not as much what it's, you know, like here. That would require a lot more thought and effort, but I think it's necessary to talk on a few subjects.

Well, for another time.
Again.

Leaving tomorrow night! :(
Crap!