This past rest day we decided to shake things up a bit and went to a place called Pondicherry. It is another beach town, but it wasn’t a swimming beach town. Pondicherry’s claim to fame is that it was a French colony back in the 1800’s. The French have been gone over 40 years now, but there are still a lot of remnants of their existence. Part of the city has been persevered as the historic French district. They don’t allow horns in that part of the city so it is just silently quaint little piece of Europe, complete with cobblestone streets and European (original or renovated to be like the original) architecture. You would think you were in Europe minus the small detail of Indian people being everywhere. The movie Life of Pi was filmed primarily in Pondicherry, and there is a huge statue of Ghandi on the beach because (and this is India according to Ashley, so keep in mind that this could very well be wrong) he ended his salt march in Pondicherry.(?) Either way, Ghandi was boss so he deserves statues where ever people want to put them--even if there is no personal connection with the place and him as a person.
The three formerly known as the village adventurers (aka Sean, Maurine and I) set out to tackle is town as well. There were times when it would be fair to say the town tackled us in some senses, like when we wandered around lost for about an hour trying to find this highly recommended Italian Restaurant, which turned out to be exactly where we were wandering, just a few floors up so we kept missing it. We did manage to find the highly recommended French bakery while looking for the restaurant though—and it had AMAZING chocolate brownies, almond/pecan bakes and sugar doughnuts. The Italian restaurant was worth the search though. There was REAL cheese—like stringy gooey cheese. It was run by an actual Italian so I am sure that helped things out a bit. He was hilarious too. Ill have to try to get pictures of him the next time we go. Did I mention Pondicherry is also famous for their food? There were some in our group who simply ate---all day long. I can’t pass judgment for that through because I will probably spend a day doing the exact same thing at least one of the times we go to Pondicherry.
The three formerly known as the village adventurers (aka Sean, Maurine and I) set out to tackle is town as well. There were times when it would be fair to say the town tackled us in some senses, like when we wandered around lost for about an hour trying to find this highly recommended Italian Restaurant, which turned out to be exactly where we were wandering, just a few floors up so we kept missing it. We did manage to find the highly recommended French bakery while looking for the restaurant though—and it had AMAZING chocolate brownies, almond/pecan bakes and sugar doughnuts. The Italian restaurant was worth the search though. There was REAL cheese—like stringy gooey cheese. It was run by an actual Italian so I am sure that helped things out a bit. He was hilarious too. Ill have to try to get pictures of him the next time we go. Did I mention Pondicherry is also famous for their food? There were some in our group who simply ate---all day long. I can’t pass judgment for that through because I will probably spend a day doing the exact same thing at least one of the times we go to Pondicherry.
Okay, I’m done talking about food for the time being. Well kind of, the next part still has to do with food in a way. Before we got lost looking for the restaurant, we made our way to the Grand Bazzar that's a couple of blocks into town. We asked some directions but ultimately we found it by its scent—mostly because we happened to enter through the fish market section. I have a hard time with even the smell of fish, but it was still pretty cool to go see. They had every kind of fish imaginable, even sharks, stingrays and eels. My favorite station was the stingray station simple because I didn't even know that people ate stingrays. Cool as it was, I was making sure I knew where the nearest exit was just in case I got sick. I was actually doing pretty well until I stepped on a whole pile of fish guts. Nothing actually touched my foot but the feel of stepping on it, along with the sound effects from both the guts and Sean’s version of me stepping on the fish guts was enough for me. We left the fish portion pretty quick after that. The Grand Bazzar is more or less a mouse trap. You enter into all these different sections and one turns into another and another and it all just keeps going. Think IKEA on steroids. Minus the fish, there were so many different colors and sections and good smells (spices, produce and such) and vendors that it was absolutely mesmerizing to me. It is for sure on the list of things to explore more next time I’m in town.
There were other notable happenings throughout the day but I’ll only mention the greatest one. We were in a shop where Maurine was buying something, and all of a sudden a man who had spent a significant amount of time to dress up as a girl came in and demanded we pay him money. It was the most random thing ever. He/she came in, held out his/her hand, said, “Give me money!” directly followed by “I am a girl!” and then just stood there waiting for money. It wasn’t a stick up or anything but we all just kind of stared at him/her. I wasn’t going to give someone money simple because they demanded I should, besides the fact that guess what buddy, I’m a girl too; and a real one at that!!! Lucky for us the shop owner came over and gave him/her some money. In all fairness he/she had spent a lot of time dressing up, and I have no idea if it was done out of a joke or because he really felt like a she or what but it was entertaining none the less. I was really proud of the three of us though because we held it together really well, and only after we left she shop did I say, “Well, I think it is safe to say we just met our first Indian drag queen” and then we all just lost it. Thank you random citizen for helping to create a memory for us.
