Pondy

Greetings from Pondicherry's hippest Internet cafe, Coffee.com. This has to be the strangest place in India. It was a French colony until the middle of the twentieth century, and it's immediately obvious once you enter the city. All the streets have French names, the cops wear French uniforms, the streets are broad avenues insted of the cramped alleys of normal Indian cities, and our waiter at dinner last night spoke French as a first language. Then you step out into the street and get buzzed by a rickshaw. Very odd.

We came here from Chennai, which I would be perfectly happy never seeing again. Exceedingly polluted, absolutely unwalkable, and with the hardest-bargaining rickshaw drivers I've ever seen. There's really very little to see there except the government museum, which commands about 45 minutes of your time.

We came from there to Pondy, seeing some temples on the way. This morning we went to Auroville, an experiment in cooperative living just over the border in Tamil Nadu. It was founded by one of India's revolutionary political leaders and his companion, a French woman known as the Mother. We saw a film on how wonderful it is to live there, and saw their meditation center (which resembles a giant golden golf ball), but couldn't see the actual village. Still, an interesting thing to hear about.

It's lunchtime now, and we'll be seeing an ashram after that. More updates to follow.