February 19, 2024

My Favorite City in India (so far)

This weekend was a whole lot of random. I came into Pondicherry with no expectations and no plans besides just figuring stuff out as I go. Upon our arrival on Saturday, I took a dip into the ocean and set out for a long day. On Saturday, I just walked around and stumbled into odd situations. I walked to a broken down pier to find a group of fishermen hanging out with each other. I tried to get them to take me out in their boats; instead they invited me to play a few rounds of blackjack with them. As fun as it was, I think they played me: I lost 20 rupees. The rest of the day included a stare down with a mongoose, me freaking out after seeing a leech, and a dinner where my feet got eaten up bugs. Sunday was a bit more fun. I headed to the Puducherry museum with Yak; we saw displays of odd weaponry and clay faces thousands of years old. After the museum, we stumbled on an art exhibit about “Wakaliwood”, a Ugandan movie studio that makes action movies. It was so cool to see the pictures and stories of a low budget film studio run by the passion of a community in Kampala. Our next goal was to reach the mangroves I heard so much about; we made it, but without a boat, it was pretty underwhelming. For more excitement, Yak promised me ancient ruins further away at Arikamedu. The ruins weren’t great besides a well I was pretty excited for. They also were not ancient. But I had fun watching our rickshaw driver start off-roading to get us there. Pondicherry was exhausting and hot but so far my favorite city I’ve been to in India.

By Adam