THE SOUTH

And we are done with the north. And I wash my hands of that part of the country. It was interesting, and I enjoyed seeing it very much....but the south has a much slower pace, and the their are less tourists in general so the people are less agressive. To the point in fact were getting things done is difficult. Then it becomes the question of, would you rather make decisions and try to do things when people are constantly standing over you, crowding you in and offering you things...or would it be better to make decisions when people won't help you and give you the information you need. You decide!

So right now we are in the city of Puducherry (Pondicherry when it was a French colony, which it was all the way up until Indian independence), in the state of Tamil Nadu. Where they speak Tamil and write in this really crazy curly-que looking language, you should take a look.

This honestly has been a breath of fresh air. The town has a very European feel to it, and there are lots of Europeans and Indians who vacation here (especially in the month of december), the steets are wide, they are clean they are sort of quite. There are even white people driving themselves around (that is honestly unheard of here....in fact the state department web site advises against foreigners renting cars, because if you accidently hit and kill/injure a cow, it is likely a mob will pull you from your car and beat you to death. It happens.) It is just a breath of fresh air to walk around for a day with out being approached and hasseled (or not that much...). And we really lucked out on our housing. The whole city is booked up, and we actually called ahead and books two rooms, but then arrived a few hours later than we said we would, so they had given the rooms away. They had an axillary building however, which was more down town and it is this nice narrow creol building in the French quarter. We rented two of the rooms, and there is a kitchen and a balcony...and no one else is there. They just gave us the keys to the front door to the house and left. We have the whole house to ourselves! And then yesterday we were walking down the street and ran into this british couple who had been on our bus with us from Chennie....and we had dinner with them, went back to our house and drank some beers on the pourch...and today they are going to rent out on of the other rooms in the house! PARTY! They are super nice. They are teaching gym/geography at an international school in Hyderabad and are here on christmas vacation.

It has been a really relaxing last day or so...and I am tempted to talk the boys into staying another day or so. I am real tired of moving constantly, but it is hard because there are so many things that people want to see. But I am finally giving into my need for a little bit of western culture and a break from the Indian hubub.