Pondicherry

Pondicherry, former French colony, is divided into two totally different parts by a channel running through the city. The part between the sea and the channel is still very much the face of the France - streets with villas, museums, memorials, parks.

And the part behind the channel is 100 per cent Indian - Indian restaurants at every corner, cows, rubbish, more cows, more rubbish.

French part

Statue of Gandhi

Policemen in Pondicherry still live in old French times.

Pondicherry is maybe the only city in India, where there are street names on the houses, and besides, they are in a readable writing...

Milion different kinds of bananas....

In south of India there is Ganesh, the God, standing in front of each temple, in his full size. He gives blessing to people with his trunk. However, Ganesh is trained so that he only reacts on Rupees....

All gourmets should immediately head to Tamil Nadu or Pondicherry. There is the most delicious food in the whole world - super-good, unlimited quantity for just 30 Rupees and ecological after all - instead of plates, they use banana leafs, which afterwards go behind the restaurant, where they are easily accessible for cows, who then give shit, which is then again used as an energy for cooking new food.

"Meals" is the name of this south Indian lunch. Consists of rice, many different salats and sauces, sometimes also chappatis or pappad or both and very often there is cardamom desert included.

The best dish we have ever eaten !!!














Banana leaf-plate factory














Typists waiting for somebody who would use their service




Near Pondicherry, there is a place that does not belong to any country but to all of the World, or at least this is what they say.... It is called Auroville after the founder Sri Aurobindo. It is a place where ecology, modern technology and spirituality meet. The village attracts many visitors, but unless one has a possibility to live in the village and feel the difference, the short trip to the visitor center does not show much of the atmosphere of the place.

However, visiting Auroville, even shortly, is like a jump to a different World than India for a while.

visitor center

The idea of the Auroville

Visitor's area in Auroville

solar cooker

approaching Matrimandir...

Matrimandir - a symbol of the Divine's answer to man's inspiration for perfection. In other words, place for stillness and meditation. Entering is possible only with special permissions.

"The whole World yarns for freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains"

/Sri Aurobindo/

"Man seeks at first blindly and does not even know that he is seeking his divine self; for he starts from the obscurity of material Nature and even when he begins to see, he is long blinded by the light that is increasing in him."

/Sri Aurobindo/

Mamallapuram

Mamallapuram is one of the few tourist hubs in Tamil Nadu. At the same time it is the center of ancient rock carvings. All kinds of souvenirs made of stone, that tourist can buy all over India, come mostly from this place.














Mamallapuram is full of rock sculpture shops and constant voices of hammering






































Statue of monkeys, cleaning from fleas


As Mamallapuram is also on the coast and the beach here is much more narrower than in Chennai, the tsunami in 2004 put much bigger pressure on this little town. It is still possible to see some traces of destroyed houses near the beach. The only building that stayed untouched on the beach zone was Shore Temple.












Shore temple that survived the tsunami
















Branko trying to keep the boulder from falling

























Indian tourists



Monkeys were once again one of the biggest attraction of the place.



























































Monkeys are clever, they know how to open a stolen water bottle, but they still have to learn how to drink from it without spilling most of it on the ground




















Such a pity we did not take the picture from lower position, so that the hand of the man would have been little more higher :-)))














Lighthouse

Chennai

Already long time we had been waiting for arriving to Chennai (Madras), the capital city of Tamil Nadu.
In Chennai is living our new friend Suresh, head of the Geography department of the University of Madras, and he had invited us to stay with his family in his home.

When we came off the train in the Chennai station and walked towards the main lobby to find a phone to call to Suresh, we suddenly noticed a tall young man standing with the sign "Branko Branislav Skokan, Kadri Rull"
Suresh had sent one of his PhD students to pick us up and bring us to the University.

Sunil, as was the name of the student, took us to the University where we finally met Suresh and also got to know all the other professors that were still at work at this late hour.














Suresh behind his desk in university of Madras

When leaving the department and going to the train station to take the suburban train towards home, we were struck by a heavy tropical rain. It was the first time, we experienced something like that. It was just like somebody from above poured all water of the World quickly at once on us. With first few seconds, we were totally wet.
We grabbed some snack (on the picture below) in the snack bar near train station, hoping that maybe the rain will stop, but as it didn't, well what to do....just run....


















South Indian food is very different from north Indian food. On the picture, one of the most common breakfast in south India - Idli - rice cakes with some spice sauce


The next day we decided to take the time off.
We had been continuously on the move since we started the trip, and the home of Suresh and his wife Padma was a perfect place for just having rest from the travel tiredness.















Washing all of our clothes. Last time we washed them in Turkey, in Onder's washing machine




















In south India, there is a custom to draw beautiful patterns in front of the gate, in the sake of good luck. We were explained, that in old times these patterns were drawn with rice or some other foodstuff, so that animals passing by the site can have something into their bellies.


In the evening, Suresh asked Sunil to look after us and show us around the next day.
We said to Sunil that he does not have to be with us, if he maybe has some more important things to do connected with his studies.
He answered that whatever his Sir asks him to do, he will do.
If his Sir asks him to go to hell, he will go....
This is the relationship between professor and student in India !














Fruit market

An interesting discovery for us - coconut embryos - with coconut taste fluffy texture, like a marshmallow inside the nut ...














The gate of the former British fort, now the place for Tamil Nadu Secretariat & Legislative Assembly. Not so much history left there anymore, but the thickness of the wall shows its old-time importance














Bricklayers - like many other Indian people, they insisted us taking photo of them

Noon siesta in the park. The mid-day in Tamil Nadu was terribly hot even in December.














University canteen














Food at university canteen - rice with papad (a big lentil chip with the taste like our potato chips)


University of Madras is located just next to the main entrance to the Marina beach, so one day we spent half the day on the beach.

We were shocked by the masses of people, even though it was a regular working day.... once again we were convinced that there are too many people in India.

Gate to the Marina beach, through which is visible the tower of the university of Madras












Memorial on Marina beach, dedicated to a beloved actor and politician of Tamil Nadu












This is how Marina beach in Chennai looks like on a normal working day.












Spicy fish











Amusement on the beach

Marina beach was also affected by the tsunami in 2004.

For the luck of Tamils, the tsunami hit the shore at night, when most of the people were at home sleeping and fortunately the beach is wide enough, so that the water did not cause any major destruction in the city.

On the Christmas day, with Suresh, his wife Padma and daughter Vedha

For Hindus Christmas does not have any deeper meaning, only that it is a national holiday and most people have the day off from work.

Suresh told us that he knows a family little outside of Chennai who are christians and to whom we could pay a visit, so that we could celebrate Christmas together with them.

Even though we were absolutely not on the Christmas frequency, due to this heat and atmosphere and palm trees around us, something that absolutely do not fit together with Christmas time, we were curious enough to get to know how Indian christians celebrate Christmas. So we were heading there.









Islam, Hinduism, Christianity happily together on the sticker on the front window of the bus


When approaching to the Christians house we were first welcomed by the Santa Clause on the wall. Every year at Christmas time, they paint some Christmas picture on the front wall and when Christmas are over, they paint it white again.
We entered the house and first thing that was given into our hand was a glass of home-made wine. That was the one and only glass of alcohol that we were offered in India, and that happened in the house of Christians :-)

The whole bunch of people gathered there were quite jolly already.

After the Christmas lunch, lots of children suddenly came to wish happy Christmas, everybody having a Christmas card in the hand..... and for sure most of these children were simple Hinduist family offspring.
In this matter, India is a perfect example, how all cultures, religions, ideologies are existing next to each other, and nobody have problem with it...... at least this is how it seamed to us....

Besides, the name of the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is Mr. STALIN

After Christmas we were ready to move on again, packed our things in the morning, said thank you to Suresh before he left to work, everything seamed to be ready for leaving.....except one thing.....
Branko did not feel very well, in fact after minutes and minutes passed he started to feel more and more weaker and more sick.

So after some discussing we decided to stay for one more day and give some time for Branko to start feeling better again.

Next morning, we repeated everything, packed our stuff, said good bye to Suresh before he went to work, Branko was already feeling much better, but......now all the same things started to happened with Kadri - weakness, loss of apatite, nauseous being..... and once again we decided to stay for one more day.

In the evening of that day we started to suspect that maybe we have both caught malaria from somewhere. In all the hotels that we had slept before, we had contributed enough blood for the continuation of the mosquito spices and all the symptoms we had, were the same as described in internet about malaria.

So, what next......one of the worst things in the life is to live in unknowing.....
Because of that, we decided it is better to know for sure, than not to know for sure.

We made up a plan - next day we will go to the nearby hospital and let them to take few drops of our blood and find out.
If the results will be negative, we will immediately move on and forget these weird symptoms, if the results will be positive........ well, for this case we did not have any plan yet...

In that hospital, we were given the most quickest and unbeliavably professional service that we had ever experienced anywhere in Europe. After 5 min blood was taken, all the bureaucracy filled in and they said us to come to pick up the results in few hours.
It all cost us 3 EUR for both.


After few hours, we received the results: NEGATIVE


All is funny that ends good !


Later, we found another explanation to our mysterious sickness, was it true or not, that does not need any proofs anymore, cause after these two days, all the symptoms were gone forever.
So, we figured that it could have been Hepatitis. In India you can basically get it everywhere. The Indian food in Indian average restaurants is very delicious but only as long as you don't see how they make it and how often (or seldom) they wash their hands, especially after doing the holy business...
Anyway, we were both vaccinated for hepatitis (Very much recommended to everybody traveling to India !!), but even in this case, body sometimes needs some time to fight with the virus....


Finally after the results came out to be good news for us and we both felt healthy again, it was time to leave. Just one more thing was to be done - watch Ice Age 3 with kids.
















And then leaving......
It was one of the saddest leavings, because we already started to feel like family members at Suresh house. It was definitely one of the best and relaxing weeks while we were in India.
Thank you for this great hospitality, Suresh, Padma and Vedha !














Suresh coming to send us off, Padma standing on the gateway














Kadri's hands, Padma's art