Pondicherry is not Madurai

I just spent the past few days in Pondichery, catching up with Roos, a friend of mine from Holland who is in town for a few weeks. She took some time away from her work to tool around town with me for a few days. We first met back in summer of 2002 at the Tamil Summer School of the French Institute of Pondicherry. Way back then we stayed with two Polish girls in one room at a VERY shady guest house near the Government Park. Turns out that the Hotel Qualithe, known for hosting a number of sketchy foreigners in its downstairs bar as early at 7am some mornings, apparently was the scene of a prostitute murder not too long ago. Last time I stayed there a couple of years back the place was busted by the police for serving alcohol on a black day. Needless to say, I didn't stay at this place this time but instead opted for A/C luxury on the other side of town.

Back in the good old days of the Tamil summer school, we commuted by cycle. None of us had any cell phones and had to reach one another the old-fashioned way, by cycling or walking to someone's house. There were just a few restaurants catering to tastes other than South Indian idlis and dosa. These were also the days of traveler's checks, not ATMs, and super slow internet. How did we manage? Just fine, I guess. But now when I visited Pondi I was simply bowled over.

Pondicherry, now "Puthucherry" as it has been renamed, is POSH. There are lots of amazing places to eat now and the food is some of the best you can find anywhere. New restaurants and hotels have been constructed on the ocean front, some with views of the ocean. Coffee shops are offering iced mochas and wireless internet, for example, and Pizza Hut has even made it to Pondi, and though I wouldn't really call this a victory I certainly wouldn't be above patronizing this establishment after two months of eating rice. The city was simply overflowing with tourists, most of them Indian (it's tour season) though there was the standard contingent of hippies and expats. Some things in Pondi never change. Foolish Westerners were walking around half naked, but since it's Pondi the locals didn't really bat an eyelash. EXCEPT for the woman at the tea stall who was wearing SALWAR PANTS and a t-shirt. Salwar pants are meant to be covered, at least down to the knee. Basically she looked half naked and would have been better off wearing shorts or a mini-skirt. Kids were pointing and laughing and adults, including me, were staring. But she was smiling from ear to ear, getting a tea in the middle of the men's domain of a tea stall and sitting herself down right on top of a rock next to the gutter to drink it. Guess she was loving the attention.

Yesterday Roos and I took a couple of bikes and rode several kilometers out to Auroville beach on one of the most dangerous roads I've seen in India. The entire time you've got a white-knuckled grip on the handlebars, pretty much. Because we are white we simply sailed right on in to the private Auroville area. A quaint place where white hippies and ashramites play guitar and contemplate world peace under the shade of palm trees. Meanwhile the brown-skinned locals serve drinks and clean the place. Sweet, isn't it? Enlightenment really doesn't have to be a lot of work, especially when you bring your Euros to a third world country.

Overall, Pondi was a super amazing vacation. I fell in love with this place all over again. I even went around without a dupatta. Now I am back in the dustbowl of Madurai. I think I will go eat some rice now.

Many more pictures to come, but for now feast your eyes on this one, which I think is a nice reversal of the tourist gaze.

Toasted Buns:
Frenchman tans his ass while local woman/
beggar reclines on beach, looking on.