)Un peu de français plus bas... alors lisez tout le post!
There are limited food choices in Puri, and after 6 days here we were running out of ideas. Henri had a sneaking suspicion that eating at our hotel gave him the runs (une diarrhée) the morning after so we kept trying new places to eat. However, I reasoned, it's just a bad morning poop so it's nothing to worry about.
One Saturday, we tried a restaurant facing the beach. It was supposed to be our rest day, and the following day we planned on visiting the tribes in the Orissan mountains - just something to kill the time while we wait for Tuesday to arrive, because that's the only day that the bookable trains can go either to Chennai or Pondicherry.
After three hours of doing nothing in the restaurant, we went back to the room to do the laundry and slept. When we woke up, it was time to have dinner again. This time, we wanted to treat ourselves; we were curious if expensive hotel food would be better than the places on CT Road (which were not exactly cheap either, they just taste cheap) so we went to the biggest hotel in Puri and looked at the menu. The food was twice the price everywhere else in Puri, but, we thought, if it's just as good as Teej in Kolkata, then we'll go back to bed happy and satisfied.
Little did we know that the most expensive food in Puri would also be the most poisonous.
That night, Henri ran a fever. He vomitted and had diarrhea all night, and whenever he drank water, he would throw up minutes later. In the morning, the first thing he did was call the insurance while I asked around for the hospital, and in fifteen minutes we were on a rickshaw going to the hospital.
The hospital was frenetic, but it was practically free and you only had to pay a rupee to get a form where the doctor can write your diagnosis or prescription.
They were quick and efficient. Two doctors handled the cases of perhaps a thousand people a day, the complaints ranging from my own whooping cough to another guy's busted head -- but I guess they were also very good doctors because Henri stopped vomitting immediately after being injected with two vials of whateverthatwas. But he also got very dizzy and nauseous after the second shot, and while I ran out to get him water, a hospital aide escorted him to the window and told him to let loose on the floor... he didn't :)
When I got back with a juice box and a bottle of water, he was seated in front of the window and I sat with him. Then he pointed at something lying on the floor, unmoving.
"Is that what I think it is?" he asked. And I stared at it: a man covered in a sheet up to his face, hands stiffly placed on his sides. He wasn't breathing. So we got out of there as soon as we could and went back to the room to sleep then watch Star Movies. The next two days, we stayed in the room and went out only to eat.
When we went back to Accha, the restaurant, I told the kid who's usually so nice (mentioned him in the blog before) that Henri and I are both sick and he said "yes, I noticed you look bad." And I was like, dude, you shouldn't say things like that to a girl! But I let it pass because he's really a sweet boy and he gave me the excess of Henri's fruit puree. Actually, he kind of took care of us until our last night in Puri, when we left the hotel late and he was closing up the shop but he agreed to let us in and eat.
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| We met a French family at this resto during late lunch and they ran out of places to stay so we recommended where we were staying. Henri's dreaming of doing a trip with our future kids. But first, we have to get out of Puri alive. |
Et bien entendu, le quota spécial "foreign tourist", car oui, il y a 20 ou 30 places réservées pour les touristes, était aussi complet. Du coup la personne au comptoir nous a conseillé de venir tôt le lundi matin pour être dans les premiers à demander un billet qui s'appelle "Tatkal Sewa", encore un autre quota (il doit y en avoir 10 ou 15 différents), qui se prend 24h avant le train et contre échange d'une copie du passeport et 108 Rs de plus par personne.
Nous voilà donc à 6h45 en train d'attendre pour ces billets, le bureau ouvrant à 8h.
Nous voilà donc à 6h45 en train d'attendre pour ces billets, le bureau ouvrant à 8h.
Pendant l'attente, un homme, le seul, était avant nous et nous avons vite compris qu'il faisait la queue pour d'autres personnes. Quand Marj s'est assise à côté de moi, il lui a dit de se lever et elle a réagi comme une Indienne, lui disant de ne pas lui parler de cette manière et a fait le geste comme si elle allait lui mettre une baffe. Du coup je m'en suis mêlé et ai dit au type que si je m'en mêlais plus, çà serait mon poing dans sa face et un point c'est tout.
Comme à chaque fois qu'il y une altercation entre nous et des Indiens, d'autres Indiens sont venus et ont demandé ce qu'il se passait. Nous avons expliqué de la personne avait mal parlé à Marj et qu'il devait apprendre les bonnes manières, surtout qu'il n'aurait jamais osé parlé comme çà à une Indienne, le respect de la femme étant si fort ici. Ils ont compris et ont noyé le poisson, mais je n'avais pas perdu de vue qu'il faisait la queue pour les autres et ait commencé à faire un scandale à ce propos. Moi, à 7h30, après 45 min d'attente assis et malade comme un chien, faut pas me chercher! :)
Ils m'ont fait croire qu'il y avait une règle en Inde qui voulait que personne ne pouvait faire la queue pour les autres car c'est un formulaire par personne et rien d'autre. A 7h55, la porte s'ouvre et voilà le retour du chaos, voilà que tout le monde se met à courir vers les 2 comptoirs qui allaient ouvrir quelques minutes plus tard.
Nous étions censés être 1er sur le comptoir n°2 et l'autre sale type 1er au comptoir n°1 mais j'ai couru, machinalement, comme tout le monde, pour défendre ma place. C'est le genre d'incivilité qui pèse à la longue quand on voyage longtemps dans un pays... mais bon, ça fait partie du pays et de ses (mauvaises) habitudes.
Et voilà une photo des queues qui n'ont aucun sens, le fameux sale type étant derrière, que je n'ai pas manqué de ridiculiser en parlant fort devant tout le monde en disant que c'était un mauvais et qu'il aurait un mauvais karma (c'est comme une insulte ici), tout collé au comptoir n°1 avec les personnes pour qui il avait fait la queue juste derrière lui, comme de par hasard.
Après tant de misères, nous voilà sortis de la gare avec un ticket pour 2 personnes pour Pondicherry! Yeah!!!! Enfin!!
So it was settled, and on Tuesday morning we checked out of the hotel at exactly 8am, no sign of the French family who were going to Chennai on the same train. My knee was hurting (twisted it) after we went back to the food posioning resto on Monday to complain (the manager just gave us the usual bullshit and offered us tea); but I found out that if I squatted while walking, I could carry my backpack like normal.
The problem was going up stairs, and we passed quite a few going to the Pondicherry train platform, and then again going up to the canteen because Henri wanted a sit down breakfast. At least we didn't have to run this time, unlike the Gaya trip when we had to run alongside the moving train then jump in.
But look at the appetizing sight at the canteen! Ce genre de scène est très courante ici, ils n'ont aucun complexe à montrer leur gros bourrelets puisque c'est un signe de richesse! Beurk!
This time we had a 26 hour train trip, and luckily the people on our section of the train didn't talk so loud. There was just one guy who maybe had sinusitis and he got on Henri's nerves because he would snort like a pig every few minutes. But the rest of the trip was peaceful and we slept most of the time.
For dinner, we ordered food from the train caterer; but there was a mixup and that was how we found out you had to remember which guy you order the food from or else you don't get what you ask for. This caused a bit of a scandal in our train because the people with us scolded the kid who sold us his dinner box knowing fully that we would be so easily fooled. But it was not so bad because we got more rice instead of chapati.
While on the train, Henri met a French-speaking indian artist, Manoj, who also happened to have a string of homestays in Pondicherry. He was cool so we decided to stay with him in his house near the ice cream shop and all the best bakeries in Pondy.
We arrived at 2pm and walked to the breakwater that used to be a beach until the tsunami of 2004. There was a cafe there that had bad been there since the turn of the century. The food was quite nice, but the service was not. There were a couple of Indians who ordered salads next to us who took a few bites of the leaves and then left the plates there, hardly touched. I was struggling not to take the plate and finish the salads. After talking about it, we thought maybe they're just not the salad eating type.
The next day, we went to Daily Bread which is just around the corner from the house, and we had the first real French breakfast we've had in 2 months. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
Manoj joined us minutes later and we had an interesting talk about the Sri Aurobindo ashram and his free view on religions. We hardly noticed the time and we left late, but it was nice to relax over coffee and pastries.
Our first day was dedicated to discovering the French and Tamil quarters. A few blocks away is this temple dedicated to Ganesh, where a real elephant called Lakshmi gives her blessings to people who give her food. We were there a little too early so we decided to come back another day.
We visited the tomb of "the Mother," a spiritual french leader of the ashram. Although it is forbidden to worship her, there were still two or three people who bowed to her and rubbed their bodies with the finger that touched the tomb, and I caught a number picking up and eating the leaves on top of the tomb.
These are the sights on the former beach promenade at the French Quarter.
And the public gardens...
There were some really cute European style buildings and houses which, in addition to the fact that Pondicherry was a French colony for hundreds of years, which earned it the monicker "French Riviera of the East."
The police have such cute uniforms, too...
Not very French...
But the Catholic churches definitely have French touches, in fact this one was allegedly modelled after the cathedral in Lourdes.
There was a wedding that day...
And outside, a statue of Joan of Arc, or Jeanne D'Arc.
The art scene is very active here...
There are a lot of galleries and hip places to be. We met up with Manoj later at Café Des Arts.
This guy was in the tree and came out to make us smell the flowering bud of leaves that turned out to be champa.
Henri's favorite incense scent! Et oui, la fleur de champa, avec laquelle on fait l'encens Nag Champa, mon préféré et aussi le préféré de Cécile, spéciale dédicace la puce!
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