Sun, Mosquitos, and Saris

Hello from Chennai! I hope everyone is enjoying their lead up to the holidays. I'm spending long hours at work in India (like 10.5 hour work days), but am still finding time to soak up the sun and the fabulous weather. I have completely missed the monsoon rain, and get to enjoy the relatively 'cool' and sunny 70-80 degree weather in India. The only down side is how many mosquitos there are in the aftermath of the monsoon...I have bites all over.

I have managed to go on a whirl-wind bus tour of Chennai last week on Thanksgiving day, and I went out of town to a place called Pondicherry this weekend. The highlight of my bus tour was a really neat Shiva temple in town. You take your shoes off before going in, and walk around barefoot.

Pondicherry is an old French territory that was handed back to India in the 1950s (the link is to some good pictures of the town). I think at some point the name was really "Pont de Cherie" but it's been transformed over the years. People still speak French there (along with the dozens of local languages, of course), the streets all have French names, and you can get really good French meals, enjoy the beach, and go shopping. I visited a temple here where an elephant stands outside, accepts 1 roupi coins from people, and then waves it's trunk over their heads to 'bless' them. I've got an awesome picture of me being blessed by the elephant...but here's a picture of the elephant to tide you over. The place we stayed, Villa Helena, was AMAZING...a five bedroom guest house near the beach with a huge staff to take care of us...words won't do it justice. Neither really do the pictures on their website...but check it out anyway.

Last night I went silk/sari shopping at Nalli's. It was a lot of fun - there are rows and rows of wooden shelves filled with every kind of sari on the face of the earth (cotton saris from $4, and wedding saris to $1000). I found a very affordable silk red and gold one...now I just have to get the blouse made up before I leave India. I was a bit disappointed with the silk fabric selection...I'll have to keep looking. Most people, including me, get around here by autoricksaw for a little over a dollar a ride.