Floods R Us

Sure enough, Mr. Chirpchatty faded away and was replaced by the lovable unmorningable spouse of old. Mr. C may make a comeback on the weekend when we leave Chennai to go down to Pondicherry (now called Puducherry). Pondi is a much smaller town and I know my way around pretty much so I'm looking forward to it.

The weather is supposed to be in the mid-80's for the rest of this week and next. Lest you don't think that sounds so bad - when you add in 89% humidity, it's like a public sweat bath! I've been knitting in the hotel for the past several days - they have a lovely executive lounge with great South Indian coffee and tea and a great view. The monsoon rains come down in buckets and sheets and streets quickly flood. The water in puddles has made its way through sewers and other less than savory places - so it's not good to slosh about. The people who normally walk in the streets next to the traffic are forced to wade through these deep puddles (more like reservoirs) as the autos, trucks, cycles and cars leave no other room for walking. You also have to gauge if the water is too high to take an auto rickshaw or a taxi, as you could be riding along - hit a really flooded area, and suddenly the water level rises and comes right into the taxi or auto over your feet and packages. I'm loving the overcast though. Grey skies are GOOD skies. There are a lot of power outages - especially in monsoon season. Everyone is used to blackouts. The hotels have big enough generators that the power cut doesn't last for long. At dinner it's typical to be dinnering along - have everything go black - all chat ceases for about ten seconds (hopefully your fork was not halfway to your face) - then the lights come back on and it's if an old movie reel were restarted.

The spouse and I are pretty comfortable with the traffic here as it is. First of all - if you weren't you'd keel over from high blood pressure the first day. Somehow it's easier to relax about a situation where there are almost no rules and few stop signs or traffic lights and anything goes, than it is to deal with the crazies at home who do unpredictable things when everyone else is obeying the known rules. A typical example in an auto rickshaw: the driver knows he wants to go down a big avenue he can't get to without going around a zillion one-way blocks, so - he turns the wrong way down a major street while the light has traffic stopped, zips to the huge intersection he wants, does a 3/4 spin turn in front of all the traffic going the other way waiting at a different light, and is now the first vehicle in line when the light turns to go the way he wants. The rules are survivor rules - try it, and if you're still alive and undamaged, it was legit. Here is a picture on the back of an auto that summarizes the attitude of all vehicles and pedestrians:

I've been dressing comfortably in my cobbled together salwar kameezes. The only thing I do differently is wear my own pants. Here's one of my typical outfits... If the eyes look a bit zombie-ish, chalk it up to jet lag. There's a picture of me in a better outfit from the visit 2 years ago if you go to the Friday, January 13, 2006 blog entry and scroll down. Sorry I haven't figured out to link directly to it yet.




















I've been having fun delving into unknown dishes at the restaurant. South Indian food differs markedly from North Indian in many ways. I'll go into it more later, but today's delve was into the breath and digestive mixes that are put out in restaurants so you can help yourself on the way out. They are in clear containers or bowls. You take the small spoon, spoon some up and overturn the spoon bowl into your hand without touching anything but the handle of the spoon with your hand. Most of the blends are based on cumin with some fennel seeds, cardamom, sugar and supari (betel nuts) mixed in. They also put out plain betal nuts (roasted, unroasted, dyed, sweetened, etc.), which are chewed as a digestive and also give a little burst of energy in the way caffeine does. The cumin can be dried, roasted, coated with sugar, dyed - endless ways of presentation. I'd seen one or two dishes in restaurants before but this had a huge lineup!

This is a lovely glass sculpture next to the main dining room. At first I thought it was blown, but it's actually made of a few zillion sized and stacked cross-sections with corrugations on the outside surface.

Here's a close-up view of the sections and yes, it's sideways - don't start with me! I do know how to rotate the pix, but can I wait a full five minutes to get back into it to do it? Nyet!

Told you I love Fabindia didn't I? Here are some shots of the store - curtain fabrics waiting to be made up and many other goodies. Each branch seems to have different things without all that much in common. The turnover in stock is amazing.

Oh, and did I mention they always have a bathroom you can use at the any of the branches of the stores? That's big....reaallllllly big.

Really missing our doggie......!