Chidambaram, India

Chidambaram, India

Monday, Oct. 9, 2006--Pondicherry (Cont.)

I made a cash withdrawal from an ATM today. I will be leaving Pondicherry tomorrow and will be traveling in some smaller towns. Although most are likely to have ATMs, not all ATMs allow withdrawals from VISA. So just to be safe, I am carrying more cash than usual right now. It's well hidden and protected, and no one will know I have it on me. I transfer a few funds to my front pockets as needed when I am in my hotel rooms. No one ever seems me get money from the big stash.

Ajish came to pick me up after he finished classes for the day. We ate dinner together at a vegetarian restaurant (since he is Hindu). I had another dosa. I'm getting tired of them. I have to start finding other things to eat now. I'll mainly deal with that by starting to go to more non-vegetarian places. After dinner, we stopped at a sweets shop and he bought me a small box of special candies made there. They are made from ghee (clarified butter, I think), graham flower, and sugar. They are good, but they taste so sweet since I have been going without desserts for so long.

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006--Pondicherry to Chidambaram

Today is my mother's birthday. If I'm not off by a year, she will be 92 today.

I had a restless night of sleep. My skin is itching. It often does when I am traveling. I don't know if it is due to the detergent they use for laundering the sheets or to some other cause. I always fear that it is bed bugs biting. I always inspect the sheets, however, and find nothing. If it is bugs, they are microscopic. Anyway, it's frustrating to itch all night and not sleep well.

I didn't do anything this morning but get up and get ready so I could leave Pondicherry. I checked out of the hotel about 8:30 and walked to the bus station about 1/2 km (1/4 mile) away. One bus wouldn't leave for another 45 minutes, so I went around the station asking about other buses. Sure enough, one was already away from the ramp and moving through the parking lot that was going to Chidambaram. I had to have help, since all the bus signs are in the Tamil language which uses a non-western alphabet. So I was very grateful to the man who found the bus for me and put me on it.

It was about a two hour drive to here. This is a small city that is a pilgrimage site. There is a big temple that draws thousands of people here. I'm not too keen on going to the temple, because my guidebook explains that volunteers throughout the complex there will dab my forehead with colored pigment and insist on donations. Then there is a further charge (200 rupees in my 6-year old guidebook, so probably 500 rupees today) to go into the inner sanctum of the temple. Is it all worth it? I doubt it. I will go there to see what I can see from the outside. I may even enter to see how it goes. But I imagine I'll just leave if the visit is marred by too many people wanting money. My main reasons for coming here are 1) to cut the time of travel to the next major stop into smaller segments, and 2) to go to a nearby town--Tranquebar, the old Danish colony in India. I will go there by bus tomorrow.

For lunch today, I ate at my hotel's non-vegetarian restaurant. I had chicken tikka masala with naan. Chicken tikka consists of chunks of tandoori chicken which are charcoal broiled on a spit over a wooden fire. The masala sauce was added for spices and flavor. It was a good size portion and so tasty. It was nice to have something that good for a change. The restaurant was full of tour groups on day trips out of Pondicherry to see the local temple.