Ponticherry

I finally made it out of my little homey place in M. and am now sitting the yuppiest place in India, a coffee shop you could also find in Berlin, Sandwiches, clean toilets etc. I am a spoiled brat and seriously, I take every European toilet I can get. India really makes me appreciate what I have in Europe.

First some information, Saturday night Fabienne, Sandra and I were invited to a place of one of the shop owners. He cooked Kashmerian food, 3 nice (1 non-veg) curries with rice. Funny enough, one of the curries was close to a bechamel sauce, very tasty and good for my still slightly upset stomach. We talked for hours about dating behaviour, sex, food, India, Kashmir, love... It was wonderful. Ahh, that afternoon I watched Gopi carve one of his wonderful thumbnail sized elefants, he has a real talent (actually I only half watched it, because I felt sick).
The next day I left to Ponticherry and had one of the coolest bus trips ever: old Indian goverment busses, wind streaming through your hair and touching your face and listening to Static-X. It was very intense and the contrast between Europe and India could larger hardly be, my eyes saw lower caste people working in the coconut farms and rice paddys, my ears filled with home.

I then arrived in P., and had a bike rikscha bringing me to the lodge. Please don't imagine a bike rikscha to be any similar to those in A'dam! First of all, it is not a good looking guys in the mid-twenties, but an old man. Further, the riksha is older than the old man. Second, it is damn slow, especially because the man stopped in between to have a chat ;). My hostel was a normal low budget lodge, Indian style toilets, but "real" shower, but a double room.

Walking along in P. later, I had the funniest question ever, mirrowing the holywood-based view of westerners: " Is it common to have sex in Europe." I thought he meant homosexual sex, but he actual asked me this question, not even knowing my name. I answered that you have to be married and that I am married and left.

Later I met Bec, an Aussi girl, and Wilson, an guy from Kerala who is working here. He had a guest pass for Auroville (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville ), so we went and had dinner there and spent an amazing evening with loads of inside Auroville stories. This place doesn't seem so perfect to me as it orignially did. He was the only properly paid Indian there, the first one. It is some kind of "New Age Colonialism". "Natives" only work lower jobs in the farm land, mostly servant like jobs, whereas the others try to be enlightend. There have even been child abuse cases, Colonial to Indian. I am very disappointed.

Anyway, this morning we met another girl, from Palo Alto, and had a girls day. My wound and my stomach are a lot better now, but this mornign I was desperately searching for a pharmacy, because my open mosquito bite (I know I shouldn't itch) was so infected that my angle looked like twisted. I am now on antibiotics, you can buy them freely here, for 26 Rupees, 5 days...
Afterwards we had a trip to Auroville again looking at the "temple", as the Indian call it, but they also call a church temple, the Matrimandir and some other Aurostuff.

Unfortunately, I can not upload photos -- no card readers, I will add them later.