Pondicherry

The Fourth of July is a holiday for us and at our job site, so we get a long weekend in India. We discuss what to do back and forth and the idea of going to Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram sounds best. Pondy is a French community that everyone has told us is great. Mahabalipuram is a small town nearer Chennai with a series of archealogical things to see. Pondy, meanwhile is about 3-4 hours away. At length we decide that Val and I don't want a long car ride again and we will go to the nearby site and spend the night.
We are all set to do this until Friday night when a manager from the job comes by an tells us that he has made reservations for us in Pondy. Screech go the brakes. It's a beautiful resort, nice massages, change is good. We decide to go with the flow and head to the French community after all.
So we rise early Saturday, pile in the car and off we go. Along we the way we see the usual fun crazy sights like the king and queen above. I couldn't begin to tell you who they are. I think they presided over a dilapidated playground.

At length we arive at the hotel and it's nice enough. We head to the beach it's on and relax a bit. The waves are rough but the water is warm and for once in India, nobody else is around. It's nice to just hear the waves for a while.

But not for too long! We decide to sightsee at nearby Auroville. Now, this is a town with a hippie vibe. The idea is that in the late 60's this French woman that they call The Mother decided to found an international community dedicated to peace and brotherhood. Or something like that. They got a bunch of people from different countries to move there and all be hippies together. So you see a lot of Europeans around. I hear that things aren't all peace and love between the town and the locals, though. The Ashram doesn't do much charity work or hire too many outsiders.

But! They have a giant, golden golfball building called the Matrimandir that we were there to see. Apparently, you go inside this marble chamber and mediate around the world's largest crystal or something. I say "apparently" because we got there too late and Peace and Love'svile locked the gate to the dome house compound.

So, we walked around in the jungle which was good and saw some exhibits about eco-friendliness. Here Mike tries out the convenient hippy coffee-maker that is sure to be in every home soon.

Eventually, we find our way back to the gift center and sit down for a snack. As we sit there, enjoying our food, Mike sums it up: "So, we basically came all this way to have cake and ice cream." Mmmhmm, but it was pretty tasty. We go back to the hotel for a nice dinner and relax the night away with drinks on the balcony listening to the waves.

At sunrise I get up to shoot some snaps.

I'm struck again with where I am. This is sunrise on the Bay of Bengal.
As I walk along the beach, I notice a lot of fish spread out and can't figure it out exactly. They didn't wash ashore, they are up to high for that. And where are the flies? Why aren't the birds all over them? Later we find out that they have been salted and are curing in the sun right there on the beach. Hunh.

We have a breakfast and enjoy the strongest, sweetest coffee I've ever had.

We talk it through and decide that though Pondi is lovely, we don't want to see the Ashram very badly and we want more adventure and less relaxing. We decide to check out the sights in Mahabalipuram, which turned out great.

Next: tourism in Mahab