After arriving in
We arrived and had our rickshaw driver take us to one of the recommended guest houses, the Hotel Continental. Unfortunately there weren’t any rooms available but, as seems to be a theme in
After checking in we decided to wander around town. We strolled along the lovely promenade taking in the
The next morning in the hopes of shaking off the last vestiges of winter we wanted to go to the beach but we weren’t sure exactly where to go. So we decided to ask around at breakfast. We went to T-space, a lovely place, which became our regular breakfast spot while in Pondi. Over delicious baguettes with jam and butter and fresh fruit with honey and yogurt we asked the affectionate French expat owner Caty, who looked like she knew a thing or two about good beaches where she would recommend we go, and after eating we took her recommendation and headed for the shores.
The beach was lovely, if not a bit isolated and we spent a fantastic day sunning and wading practically undisturbed. However, in my enthusiasm I threw patience to the wind in the hopes of getting some colour and did not wear nearly enough sunblock. (read I did not wear sunblock.) When we returned to town in the afternoon I could tell that I was going to have a burn, but it didn’t seem to be too bad, at least, not yet. After a late lunch we wanted to explore Pondi a bit more, and so we went in search of the famed Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Aurobindo was a guru who collected devotees during the late 19th and early 20th century, including a French woman who became a guru in her own right and is now known as Mother. At the Ashram I was having a lovely stroll around the courtyard when I noticed that there was a commotion gathered around some sort of alter and so I moved closer to examine what everyone seemed to be on about.
As I was heading toward the shrine I some how got swept up in a crowd of Indian women and was pushed into a kind of procession circling the flower strewn alter of Sri Aurobindo. All of the women were prostrating themselves across the shrine and making wild gesticulations culminating in their eating a leaf from a small bowl of water at the end of the procession. Having always been one for religious theatrics, i.e crossing myself at cathedrals, despite being a baptized Presbyterian, (blasphemy I know) I bent forward mimicking the women ahead of me and took a leaf from the bowl, and popped it into my mouth. The kiss of death. No sooner had I swallowed the basil leaf did it dawn on me that I just eaten something from an unknown bowl of water from god only knows where. I fretted over that a while but didn’t have much time to worry since there was nothing I could do about my impulsive action. Also Justin and I were planning on taking a free evening yoga class at the local community centre and we had to rush off or we were going to be late.
The atmosphere in the class was fantastic. It was on the upstairs floor a large French colonial building facing out towards the Bay, with huge windows that were left open so that a strong breeze was blowing in on us thorough the class. The content left a little something to be desired however, and at one point I was struck by how very Communist China the whole thing seemed. Our instructor had, I hate to say, a very irritating, high-pitched, shrill voice and she kept shouting things like, “You’re heart rate is increasing OBSERVE IT.” We enjoyed the exercise nonetheless and went to bed that night with smiles on our lips, content from a full day’s activity. However, my smile quickly faded the next morning when I woke, painfully stiff from the yoga, sun burned within an inch of my life and with the pounding realization that I had significant heat stroke. I also had the early warning signs that something in my stomach was not quite right. And after breakfast I was proven seriously right. The cramping began immediately and the continuous need to relieve myself soon followed. By the evening I was in so much pain I spent almost the entire night in the bathroom. By the next morning Justin was alarmed to find me seriously weak and a bit delirious, and when we realized there was blood in the toilet from my relieving myself he dragged me to the hospital. Once there we sat through the receptionist’s frowns of disapproval as we explained that Justin was not my husband before being permitted to see the doctor. I gave him the short list of my symptoms and he prescribed that I take coconut water, black tea and a strong round of antibiotics.
After taking the antibiotics I promptly vomited, the first of three such pleasures. Justin insisted that I eat something despite the fact that eating was possibly the last thing on earth I wanted to do, aside from shitting which was definitely the last thing on earth I wanted to do. I will pause here to note that if you are disturbed in any way by the frank discussion of diarrhea, vomiting and other such personal bodily functions you are forewarned to either get over it, or stop reading for the next few months, because I am sensing a recurring theme. I digress; thankfully we still had a few days left in Pondy before we had to take the bus to Chennai for our flight to
On Monday, the day of our departure I was gratefully relieved to find myself in fairly stable condition and we bid our goodbyes to Caty, whom we had come to greatly enjoy and
Highlights of
T-Space - breakfast and Caty
Delcious steak - something I thought I would definitely never find in
The Bay of
Auroville – I didn’t mention it in the article but this kooky place, is actually an international community technically not part of India, and it was founded by Mother on the bases of creating a community of likeminded individuals committed to the yogic way of life in all respects. Click here to learn more about this far out place. We visited Auroville on Sunday afternoon and I enjoyed it more for the ability to actually move 100 feet from a toilet for the first time in two days that for the actual place.
The bathrooms at the Promenade hotel – I spent quite a bit of time at this particular location and have never appreciated a public bathroom with a real toilet, toilet paper, and a fan so much in my life. It didn’t hurt that they also had an air sickness bag attached to the wastebasket, which I swiped just in case.
The bar at the Promenade - beautiful views of the Bay and they had ginger ale, no small feet in
Lowlights of
As if I have to mention getting violently ill - but let me reiterate I was violently ill.
Our hotel location - I support religious expression but calls to worship at 5 am over a loud speaker are an unpleasant wake up call
St Josephs Hospital – (for the experience not its existence, particularly for the looks of sheer scorn at being an unwed female traveling with a male companion. I wonder what they might have thought if we’d explained about Justin’s sexual preferences)
The enormous cockroach that spent the week with us in our room. - I named him Pegasus. He was without a doubt the largest cockroach I have ever seen, so big in fact that I couldn’t bring myself to kill him because I knew he would have left a ferocious reminder of his existence.
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