Pondicherry is so overrated.

This weekend a group of 8 of us decided to drive up to Pondicherry for the weekend. Pondicherry is about 4 hours outside of Vellore and is an old French colony. It is a very hippie, tourist beach town with a 3rd World New Orleans twist. It is near the ocean and was hit hard back in '04 by the tsunami. Five of us in the group were from UTHSCSA; the other three girls were two Sri Lankan girls from Austrialia and one American from St Louis. The Austrialian girls were super helpful b/c they spoke Tamil and helped us in booking the car. They specifically rented a car with a driver for 5000 rupees for our weekend trip.

Renting a driver was a hassle in itself: When the driver shows up, we had specifically asked for a spacious car for with A/C but he shows up in a small 6-seater car with two bootleg chairs in the back to seat 4 more. So that was a problem number one. Then he decides to tie all our luggage to the top of the car, which I was deathly afraid would fly off during our ride to Pondy. When we finally get on the road, the driver starts saying he has to turn off the air b/c we didn't ask for an A/C car. Then their is this big hoopla between one of the Austrialian girls and the driver's manager. The manager insists that we never asked for a A/C car and states that he will add 1000 rupees to our journey's fare. The manager also states he will not give us a full refund if we cancel. He also had the nerve to tell the Australian girl that she spoke crappy Tamil. What a jerk. After lots of harsh words were exchanged for the shadiness of the whole ordeal, we finally bargain for only 800 rupees in addition to our 5000 rupees.

30 minutes later our journey finally began. I thought I would be able to sleep through the whole trip, but that wasn't the case. Our driver drove like a mad man. I was seriously scared for my life at some instances. The ride was super bumpy and he kept on swerving to not hit other vehicles. Yet, we made it to Pondy safely. Then we had to find a place to stay since we could not make any reservations prior to the trip. We found a sketchy place called The French Guesthouse for 1000 rupees per night. The sheets were gross and we had no covers. So me and Erica used our towels to cover ourselves when we slept. We ate dinner that night at some fancy French restaurant. The other girls were adamant about having wine with their food and were livid when they found out they only had 3 glasses of white wine left in the whole restaurant. I wanted to tell the girls to calm down and realize that we are in an area where people aren't big on drinking and they will just have to wait to be back in the US where linquer is at your finger tips. The food at the restaurant was way over priced and didn't taste very good.

The next day we had breakfast at The Hot Bread, which was a French bakery next to our hotel. The food was very filling and good. Then we split up for our shopping excursions. In Pondy, you do not have to dress as conservative as Vellore and I don't get stared at as much as in Vellore. I was able to show my ankles in capris without getting all the stares I would have recieved in Vellore. This town is use to tourist and are rather friendly towards us. I think they thought I was French b/c they kept on saying Bonjour to me. I wasnt too impressed with the selection of the stores though and only bought one purse b/c the strap to the purse I brought with me broke. Aruna keeps on telling me to save my money for North India since they have better selection.

Shopping in Pondy was fun at first, but then it just got really hot and annoying. It was like Texas heat but a little worse. Plus it started to rain and then you just felt even more sticky. We stopped shopping for a while and tried to do indoor activities. We took a tour of a meditation house, which was interesting. You had to enter barefoot and be very quiet. I really didn't understand what was going on, but it was an experience. Then we got 40 minute massages from this sketchy man reccomended by a guy we knew from a local hotel. Massages in India are not like the relaxing kinds you get back in the states. There is no concept of draping and it is basically a oil rub down. You are susposed to be butt-naked and you do them with a member of the same sex. We had a guy do ours and stayed in our bras and underwear. The oil is surposed to be a medicated herbal treatment of some kind. Afterwards I felt like I just paid someone way too much money to rub a smelly oil all over my body and I was more tense than before I got the massage. Plus the guy called me fat during the massage and said that my tummy stuck out. He said I needed to weigh about 70kg, which is about 145Ibs. He said he had some medication he could give me to help me lose the weight in 2 months. I told him no thank you.

Three other students from UTHSCSA met up with us in Pondy (Collin, Jenn, and Seema). They had gone to another local town the day before then made their way up to Pondy. We all went to another fancy French restaurant for dinner that night. The restaurant was on the roof and very nice, but the food was awful. It had no seasonings and it took a good 2 hours to come out. The chef looked like he was working really hard in the back to cook us something amazing but the food came out tasting like crap.

The next morning, Aruna, Erica, and I rode back with Jenn and Seema in their car. This was such a better experience than the crackhead driver that drove us up to Pondy in the first place. This guy was so much more mindful of his passengers and I did not have any close encounters with death this time.

Pictures above:

1) & 2) Are pics from our first night in Pondy.

3) This is on the roof top of the restaurant that took 2 hours to bring out our food.