Fondly, Pondy (7th and last day in Pondicherry)

On our last night in Pondy, we offered to cook pasta for Manoj, but he ended up cooking for us! He and Henri went to the market for the ingredients, and then passed by Choco-là for some lip-smacking desserts.

I can't show you pictures of the two because they were sweating. Here's a more appetizing sight:

Paradise (?) Beach

We are at the backwaters in Kerala right now, and struggling to update the blog :) It's been a hectic few days, and since we hadn't had a strong enough connection since Puri, we haven't been able to post.

Here's where we are today:

Paradise, right? It's a far cry from the place called Paradise Beach in Pondicherry where we thought we could have a peaceful day on the beach.

It started with a over-congested boat ride that lasted for 30 minutes. We had to pay admission fees and camera usage fees to the park which led to the dock where we had to pay boat fees... we realized later we shouldn't have paid for the camera fee, and maybe we could have asked to waive the park entrance fees - but nobody's there to explain anything; they just ask for money then wave you in.

Puri to Pondicherry (or How Henri Got Food Poisoning)

)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.