Pondicherry, an oasis of calm on the coast

We're off to the Maldives tomorrow after spending the last three days at a four star Taj resort hotel up the coast slumming it..we celebrated Heidi's birthday as well in style last week staying at a newly opened hotel in the French speaking town of Pondicherry....

Certain influences still exist from this former French speaking enclave...the boulevard treelined streets with the wide roads juxtapose against the mayhem normally associated with typical Indian streets which don't seem to have any pattern of road rules except to beep the horn as loud as possible and a policy of might is right.

All the bicycle rickshaw wallahs laze in the back of their carriages in the mid-afternoon sun when none are out and about, save the foreigners. These mad dogs and Irishmen do well to evade the pleas of the 100 year old men that still seem to ply their trade this way, even though the engine has been invented for many's a moon.

The French legacy still abounds with French speaking schools that cater to a small niche of ex-pat francophiles and even the town hall has the French flag flying. Menus have eggs mornay, chateaubriand bernaise and crepe suzette but my all time favourite are the coffee shop and bakeries that still sell pain au chocolat and baguettes. Even the waiters had an aura of nonchalance about them when we ordered having to wait 2 hours for our entrees, but we later found out the service charge was already included in the bill, so they had no need to worry about their tip.

Even though the French government pulled out from it more than 50 years ago, the local state government still has an abiding loyalty to all things French. The gendarmes look as if they've been plucked from Paris with their small rounded kepi hats and epaulettes,TV5 Monde is a local cable channel, French daily papers arrive in the newsagents and hawkers address you in French...all very quaint....

It was a terrific break just being there, like a mini-colony, recluses, far from the maddening crowds...now we have to go back to India a few streets away and we're already tensing up. Vive Pondicherry, long may it last!