Pondy time

I spent my last days in India between Pondicherry and Auroville.

Pondy, as it called familiarly, is a former Dutch, Portuguese, English and last French colony! The French influence is palpable and a small French community lives overthere mixed with few other Western minorities.
I found a couchsurfer host before arriving in town but I spent the first day in a hotel, cause my host had his 24 hours turn in the hospital that day.

Promenade in Pondy

It was funny that while I was going back to my hotel, I bumped into  2 friends of my host ( whom I didnt even met at that time). The story in short is that I finished my dinner and I decided to get something sweet, but then I changed my mind and turned over to my way back to the hotel.
 I was lost in my thought when suddenly I heard my name, and there I met Jana and Pressly! They were in the area for some commissions and we casually came across into each other.
The mystery was solved easily,after my host told Jana (who is also a couch surfer) about me, he checked my cs profile, so he knew how I looked like.
As usual, call it destiny,fate or whatever, I had the luck to meet these two nice Indians!
Jana has an house at the back of Auroville, close by Sadhana forest, while my host lived in the center of Pondy.
I spent couple of days in Pondy with my host, partying at night with two other travelers,a French guy, that has been travelling around the globe for three years and a Spanish dude. We all spoke Spanish, and this made my host a little bit jealous, but he was going  around among his friends so we didnt care that much.
Last night I spent in Pondy with my host, he brought us ( me, the French and Spanish friend) to a cool hidden place when every bar closed up.
It was a hidden club on the roof of a building. Me and the guys thought it was a kind of rave, we had to climb stairs with no light and the walls with some graffiti reminded me of some social centre in Italy.
 But after going through the gate we were amazed! It was a posh club with a hot tub on a roof with plenty of fashion Indians.
After the initial stupor, we, the Spanish speaker gang, located a great spot, a small terrace up on a turret. People were too posh and music was not our cup of tea so we left my host with his friends and settled our own bar on the turret.

When you travel, you find all the tricks to save money and have good time anyway. The guys had rum and a bottle of coke: the perfect night!

The day after I decided to move to Auroville. I wanted to check this town that is supposed to resemble a hippie town.
I booked a nice room in a community and in the evening I had dinner with  Gaurav, another Indian Cs, who lives in Auroville. We got on very well and Gaurav offered me to stay at his place for the remaining days.
As usual I dont have half measures: I was still recovering from the previous night hungover but  I accepted to go partying at Jana place.
I was too curious to check a real Indian party and also because I knew Auroville is a alcohol free zone...so that was my last day with drinks!
The party was simply great! The tiredness disappeared after the first drink...there were Indians but also Europeans and we all start dancing Indian music, so funny!

In Auro

In Auro with Jana

The golden ball in my hand

View in Pondy from my host house

Beach in Pondy with Dani, a Spanish friend

The sky from Jana house

Jana's Terrace

Partying at Jana's

Indian dances

Yeahhhhh

Go Pressly!

Jana crazy dancing

Chennai

Chennai is a nice town, with a lot of things to see, however I spent there only one day cause I didnt have too much time left in India

I visited few of the nicest places. You can take the bus, it is far cheaper than the threewheelers and not that difficult.

My first destination was Valluvar Kottam, a famous monument erected in memory of  Thiruvalluvar, a Tamil poet who lived about 2000 years ago.

Marine beach is a famous area in town, it is not possible to bath and the beach is quite on average but in the surroundings there are few attractions as the Dutch Fort or MGR Samadhi. There is also the university with lovely buildings.

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University Building

University Building

Chennai is also very famous for the jewellery. There is an entire neighborhood plenty of jewellery shops the so called Thanga Maligai. I would not suggest to go to the small shops, cause the quality of gold or silver is not certified and usually when they see Western people prices rise as the pizza dough!
I bought some nice and good quality hearings and bracelets in GRT shop.
Grt are chain shops (you can find them in several areas in town ) they are certified and prices are fair.

I loved the Thanga Maligai area, a part for jewellery shops, there are also malls and cloths shops with very reasonable prices and lovely models!

Train (dis) adventure

Trains are a must to move around India. They are cheap, fastest and more comfortable than busses.

Obviously also transportations reflect the Asian logic that is irrational for most of Western people.

On a Sunday I decided to leave Mumbai and travel to Chennai. Around 2 pm, I went to the main train station and they sent me to another one to issue the ticket. This game was up to other 3 train stations, when at the end someone told me that on Sundays public ticket offices close at 2 pm around all the country.

Eventually I was able to issue an OVERPRICED ticket in a private kiosk.

Later on, I discovered that my ticket was not a real ticket  but I was in a waiting list, the train was full so I wasn't able to take that one.

 Furious I went to the other train station, screaming at the asshole that sold me that fake ticket..Luckily he found me a place in the next train, but he issued the ticket only for half  way and in the sleepers.

Sleepers are kind of third class, there are around 72 people sleeping in one wagon! They are over crowed, dirty and smelly.

It looks like you are in jail 

The controller woke me up the day after, telling me that I missed my stop...I explained him my nightmare and luckily he found me a place in 2nd class.
Finally I saw the light at the end of the tunnel!
The 2nd class was decent and my travel companions were funny and talkative.Landscapes were amazing and eventually I got to enjoy the rest of 31 hours journey to Chennai. The funny thing was that we arrived in Chenai around 4 am. No announcement, no controllers told us we arrived, everybody was sleeping deeply. Suddenly I heard the nasty voice of a woman telling harshly to her husband "WAKE UP, WE ARE IN CHENNAI"...and there we were, even though I would have prefered to sleep a little bit more :)

Moral of the story, if you want to travel long distances in India book your ticket at least couple of days before! If you are courageous enough you can try the thrill of travelling in the sleepers! I hope it was my first and last time...but as usual you never know!