Pondicherry

Tuesday night I left with my friend Corinne to travel south of Chennai. We got a taxi driver named Johnson to drive us down to a city called Pondicherry. Pondicherry used to be a French colony, and was handed over to India about 50 years ago. The street names are still French, and the local police wear funny red caps, but other than that it is definitely India. It is actually its own state and Johnson had to get a special permit to drive us there. After a 3 hour journey on some crazy wooded back-roads, we arrived in Pondicherry pretty late and stayed in a hotel.

I love the feeling of driving somewhere new at night, and waking up in the morning to see the place for the first time. We started out our day by renting some bicycles. The bikes had some old-school flavor with some super laid back handlebars, and I felt the French name “Garcon” fit my ride well. Corinne named her bike “Priscilla”. Riding in the city was pretty intense, although it was nothing compared to the roads in Chennai. Simultaneously adjusting to the crazy traffic and learning to ride on the left side of the road was exciting.

It was a little mellower at the beach. There was a big statue of Gandhi by the water. We spent about half an hour buying three dollars worth of jewelry from some “gypsies”. One of the guys told me to call him “gypsy king”!

We also checked out some of the local markets that were selling some really skanky looking (and smelling) fish. Yikes!