mebtravelling

To view India: Days 2-5 Photos, click here

Between San Francisco and Dubai, and Dubai and Chennai, I continued my research into what clothes to wear at the ashram. In an attempt to really force the issue, in fact, I had packed only one pair of capris and two tops. While still in Minnesota, I had talked to Indian women, read IndiaMike.com and a few other India blogs, and looked at several online clothing companies. As I say, I continued my research aboard those two Emirates flights (with 1500 channels on Emirates, can I ever again fly Delta?). I knew “Eat, Pray, Love” well enough to skip to the “Pray” section, where I studied Julia Roberts’ ashram wardrobe, pausing the video to be sure of the kameez cut and rhe salwar fabric.
Those silk, and silk-cotton blends are spectacular, and I watched Elizabeth pick out several. Having lived in Asia so long, she distinguishes between smooth silk, from the interior of the cocoon, and rougher, “natural” silk, which is from the outside. I was very tempted, but in the end, of course, I had to take my lead from Julia, not Elizabeth, and so I’ve been scouting street merchants and the two big name companies here, wondering, as i wandered, if i shouldn’t just do what so many others do – purchase fabric and run to a tailor. But this afternoon, after a false start at Boutique d’Auroville, where I bought a Salwar Kameez that is almost preppy, I went to FabIndia and found my wardrobe for the next 6 weeks. Nobody in the U.S. will ever see it, b/c the idea is to leave the clothes at Ananda when it’s time to leave there.

On the other hand, I might need them that week in Delhi/Agra.

So, yes, while you have probably been wrapping Christmas gifts, or unwrapping them, I have been completing my research, and it took all day long. This evening after a lovely dinner at the 4th restaurant we tried (we are now expert at walking on pitted streets and over brokien cobblestones – in the dark), E. and I came home.

In an AUTORICKSHAW.

Ever since, as you will know if you are a Facebook user, I have been trying to find a Mass for us for tomorrow.The French woman with whom I visited this a.m. – she is a yoga instructor – came up to tell me she, too, had had a massage (“C’etait tres bon, non?”), AND to say that her husband had just run off to the midnight Mass a kilometer away! And now, I hear the bells…
It is odd enough to realize it will be mid-80’s on Christmas, odder still to think I might not go to Mass, unless some FB afficionado comes through. I just heard from Ann, who says one of the churches stopped updating its website a year ago, and I’m here to say, THAT IS SO TYPICAL OF THIS PLACE (am I repeating myself when I say that I am beginning to form An Opinion on India?). In any case, God is in her heaven, or God seems to be [a she, right Hannah?], b/c in front of the computer, staring me down, is a lifesize statue of Kuan Lin. All’s Well With the World.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a very, very good night…and day.

Today’s drive (in a van – no more autorickshaw for us, we thought) through the streets of Chennai brought us at lunchtime to a seaside town. Mamallapuram has incredible fish, and amazing stone, sea-washed Hindu temples.

We arrived eventually at what we assumed would be our last stop of the day, our Pondicherry guesthouse. I’d been in contact with the owner, an Aurobindu (= a nearby ashram) teacher, for nearly a year. And WE WERE TURNED AWAY (seems fitting, given the season). If I remember why, 2 months from now, you can ask me about how we became The Holy Family, although just now, I am working at repression. Or do I mean suppression? FORGETTING, that’s what I’m doing, forgetting and LETTING GO . Deep breaths…

Our day ended a few minutes ago, after a seaside dinner at “La Terrace”. We just now took another bumpy, mad-dash ride in an autorickshaw. I can hear you: “You didn’t negotiate at ALL?” Really, please, don’t even ask, or if you do, I’ll claim time of night: it was really dark, and we had only a camerashot on E’s Canon, of the sign/address on the guesthouse across the street to lead the driver to OUR guesthouse, b/c when we left, nobody speaking English was around.We had tried all the usual suspects: gestures, simple word repetition…how hard can it be to understand, “What the heck is the name, or how about the address, of this place?”

Consequently, we returned from dinner, driving into pitchblack streets that were clearly as unfamiliar to the autorickshaw driver as they were to us.When he left us for the third time to ask directions, we realized that the moving darkness surrounding our autorickshaw was…3 enormous curly-horned cattle scavenging for food. E. decided not to use a flash in the photo she took, even though, as she laughed, it probably wouldn’t bother an Urban Cow…

Tomorrow we will see this place, this Pondicherry, our home for the next 6 days. It’s a destination we’ve tried not to envisage as a relief from Real India. “If, when you think of Pondy, you think ‘South of France’ — don’t.” (Lonely Planet). Even so…

I will start my day with coffee at 7, followed by an Ayurvedic massage at 7:30. I am beginning to form an opinion about India, so am not holding out great hope for this morning session, but who knows, really?

Sometime I’ll attach a photo of this green-and-yellow wonder called the “Auto Rickshaw” but just imagine it for now: driver sits on what is essentially an enclosed motorbike, and behind him is a bench for 2 passengers. I’d read stories about the Bargaining Powers of the “auto” drivers: they will try to charge you double, they will try to convince you to take a sidetrip to “my cousin’s shop”…
Elizabeth and I wanted to go 2.8 kms, according to my gps (I love that application: worked in the S. of France, works – so far – in the south of India).
Four of the 10 uniformed Hotel Attendants hovering over us as we left said it should cost “30 or – at most – 50” rupees to go by taxi…or did we want to take “an auto”? Same price. I thought, well, a private automobile would be nice…then I looked up, saw the line of AUTORICKSHAWS, and E. and I w/o a word to one another, got into one.
Halfway to Spencer Plaza, the mall where we would search for a phone (me) and a Kameez (E), the driver told us it would be 50, not 30, b/c there was so much traffic. There was traffic the likes of which I’ve seen only in Slumdog Millionaire, and that means not just people and buses and motorbikes and scores of other autorickshaws/taxis/bikes/trucks, but the noise that all those generates. As Kathy G. told me, “Clearly, the Indian drivers use their horns instead of turn signals.” So, the inflated price seemed worth it,as it seemed a fun, new, first experience, something to write home about, heheheh.

Then we finished our shopping (2 lovely Kameez for E, no phone for me, b/c no Passport Photos…at this rate, I may give up the whole phone idea). We walked out into the southern Indian sun (81F), and an autorickshaw “stand” – think Outside Any Airport in Any City in America – rose up before us. There was one man who, we later determined, was a sort of AGENT (think Godfather). No, he would not drive us, therefore could not quote us a price, but “Here, Madame, here is a driver, just for you ladies…” And so we got in, and E. asked the price to return to our hotel at the end of Anna Salai (remember, 2.8 kms). “For you ladies, just 200 rupees (remember, it cost us an outrageous 50, going).” We told him this, and one of us, probably me, said, “OK, 100.” He was clearly (!) insulted, explaining that he would have to go far, far out of his way to get to the other side of the road and head back down Anna Salai. This made [a little] sense to me, as I looked across what might have been 10 lanes of traffic, if anybody in Chennai believed in lanes. I could tell Elizabeth was not convinced, but she deferred to my Mother Compassion. But not the Autorickshaw driver. In the end, he said, “You will see…we will have to go far, far, far out of the way to reach the hotel…” and he gunned his motorbike and we flew off. He negotiated the traffic and noise, and after about 10 minutes, pulled up behind another stopped autorickshaw and said, “You ladies paid too much at Spencer Plaza…I will take you to much better shop, much better quality authentic Indian cotton, and you will see…” Elizabeth smiled radiantly and said, “No.” I was mentally re-reading chapters in guidebooks, postings on travel-blogs, and so I shook my head, too, and said, “Oh, no…to the hotel!” He grumbled, said, “200 rupees,” and we were off.
We pulled up to the armed guards (ever-present, like the searches and security checks every time we walk into the place)outside the gates of the hotel. Elizabeth gave me a gentle shove out the door and said, “You go ahead, I’ll pay.”
I leapt out, she handed him folded rupees, and I turned around to see the driver flipping through the bills and cursing E., who smiled at him, smiled at the guards, and joined me.
“How much?
“Fifty – that’s what we’d been quoted as the maximum in the first place, and anyhow, HE JUST INFURIATED ME.”