PONDICHERRY! Really charming, ex-French colony where I ate croissants for breakfast, steak frites for lunch and...tandoori chicken, rice, and roti for dinner, with some kingfisher beer. While it retains much of its Frenchness, Pondicherry combines it amazingly with Tamil Nadu culture, so that I actually heard local people speaking french to each other. It's coastal so really feels like a breath of fresh air, and you can be a flaneur here, chilling on its streets munching on a dosa, with cows idly walking by, small children shouting, and plenty of bikes zooming around and rickshaws honking, but also with its old french architecture and street signs, little art galleries and cafes.
Next I headed to Auroville, another new age/hippie experiment in creating some kind of utopian community. It is its own township with its own laws, with people from over 120 countries living there, and using tokens instead of money. About half the people are foreign, the others from all over India. It was so strange to see schools full of white children and little shops and restaurants here with foreigners. Again, India surprises me!
I then visited two mega cities: Chennai (where I managed to hear some Carnactic music) and Hyderabad, with a big Muslim population. The center is incredible, filled with Islamic architecture, women in burkhas and men in white gowns and hats. aIt relly felt like what I imagine Pakistan, or an Arab country would be like.
After that: Vizag, then Puri, two fun beach towns:
Next up was Calcutta, an incredible city. Take buildings of magnificent, opulent, European architecture, leave them to crumble and age. Chuck in some ambassador (car) taxis, human rickshaws, mosques, temples, animals, smells, dirt, and 14 million people, and you have the West Bengal capital.
Soundtrack to my trip at the moment: Babyshambles - Shotter's Nation
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