kumily to pondicherry

after a few days of peace and quiet in kumily, it was time to move along and the girls that i was with headed to a different hill station, the guy that i was with headed to bangalore and i decided to make the long overnight trip to pondicherry. the only bus that was going from kumily to pondi stopped in a place called cumbum where i waited for a few hours for the second bus to arrive. the second bus was a "sleeper" bus, which meant that instead of having seats it had small beds hung from the sides of the bus. this seemed like it would be a pretty nice way to travel at first glance, but having fairly extensive experience with the way in which buses are piloted around in this country, i knew that i was in for a long fourteen hours.

laying down in the "bed" to which i was assigned was a chore in and of itself and as soon as the bus began to ramble down the road it took quite a bit of concentration to hold on to the small rail that was meant to be keeping me from falling off of the thing. this is all on top of the basic chaotic nature of travel in india, with people screaming at each other, cars and scooters dodging cows in the road and there always seems to be one person who has to cycle through every one of the ringtones on his or her phone until one is deemed suitable. this could take anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours. either way, its not particularly pleasant.

arriving in pondi in the early hours of the morning was also not pleasant as i was the only foreigner on the bus, which meant that the rickshaw drivers would be especially hard to deal with. i guess you could say that i was a bit lucky that these were the fiestiest of rickshaw drivers, including three who decided to have a shoving match during which a few punches were thrown to decide amongst themselves who would be taking me to a guesthouse. i sat on the curb for about a half an hour while this unfolded and finally one gentleman emerged victorious. he took me to a few places which were full and in the end i wound up about ten kilometers out of town in a homestay which was cheap and decent enough for my purposes.

after taking a nap, it was time to secure transportation. i asked the man who was running the homestay if i could rent a bike from him and he called a friend who quickly appeared with a real deal motorcycle, not a scooter or moped or anything, a motorcycle. i have gotten to be very good at driving the scooters in traffic in asia, but was a bit intimidated by having to shift gears on a much more powerful bike. i jumped on it and took off into traffic and ever since have been in love with motorcycles.

it was an especially great way to get the lay of the land in pondi, which is an old french colony that still retains a great deal of its french history. combined with modern india, it makes for quite the interesting place and is easily navigable due to its simple grid layout. north and south of the city are nice, clean beaches which at times are empty. riding the indian-made bajaj motorcycle to discover new places to swim in the bay of bengal was an excellent way to spend a few days until my friends met me in pondi. we took the trip to auroville on one afternoon which is a sort of cult-like city that is meant to be based in no way on politics, cultures, religions or anything of that nature. the few thousand inhabitants of auroville only are there to devote their lives to discovering what was referred to as the "ultimate truth." there is a very large spherical structure in the center of the town that looks like a giant gold golf ball, inside of which is a crystal ball that is supposed to have some sort of truth discovering power. it was definitely an entertaining place to visit.

i think the most interesting experience that i had in pondi was on a ride out of town towards the homestay where i spent my first week here. people had been setting off fireworks for days and none of us could figure out why until i came upon a procession of people setting them off and throwing flowers on the road. they were also pulling behind them a cart with a dead body on it, which was neatly dressed in traditional indian clothing. obviously, it was a funeral procession on the busiest street in town during the busiest time of day which made the traffic that much more outrageous. on top of that, the flowers that were being thrown around had also attracted a large number of the local wandering livestock. amidst the fireworks, dead bodies, traffic, screams of mourning and the general chaos that is india, were dozens of cows, buffaloes and goats that had emerged to eat the flowers that were being thrown. it made for quite the scene, especially since there were three such processions occuring one after the other.

on top of all of this, the absolute insanity of the situation had forced to buses to collide and all of the passengers had disembarked to scream at the opposing bus driver. if you have read shantaram then you have an idea of what this might look like. it seemed as if there were two tribes of people getting ready to go to war with each other as soon as one group or the other acted first. this is all happening on a two lane road, which is used by hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis, around five in the evening which was the beginning of the local rush hour.

i was on my way out of town to check out of the homestay where i was an move into town to hang out with my friends. i gathered my things, returned the bike and keys and then jumped in a rickshaw that came to life with a sound i had never heard before and then dozens of people rushing towards the little three-wheeled device screaming at the top of their lungs. they began to pull the driver out of the seat and one man was furiously attempting to detach a chain from the rickshaw while the group of people were screaming at the driver. the man working the chain got it free and then pulled his small dog out from under the wheel of the cart. the dog was alive and had a few scratches, but was very happy to have been removed from the situation.

the driver rushed to the man and began to bow and prostrate himself on the ground, touching the dog owner's feet and asking for forgiveness. the owner touched him on the head and he stood up, continuing to apologize. he then shoved me back in the rickshaw and took off down the road, waving to friends in passing as if nothing had happened, asking the two standard questions that all rickshaw drivers ask young travelers, "where country are from," followed by, "want smoke marijuana." why in the hell that guy had tied his dog to a parked vehicle is still a mystery to me, but it certainly was interesting.

in the span of an hour i had seen quite a bit of things that really are impossible to accurately depict in words.