While attempting to sleep last night, we enjoyed 2 hours of jet-lag fuelled deep conversation while watching our small resident lizard continuously relocate to different spots on the ceiling above our bed.
We have decided to avoid waging war on the ants that appear in the kitchen. It takes only a few minutes and there they are, carrying away every crumb that has fallen to the floor. Our landlord tells us it is easier and more practical to just peacefully co-exist with them. Along with the lizard, we choose to consider them low cost pets.
A 15 minute auto-rickshaw ride to the north of Pondicherry brought us to a place called Auroville Beach, on the Indian Ocean's Bay of Bengal. Auroville is an intended utopian society that was started in 1968. The beach itself was not enchanting. We would have put up with the powerful smell of rotting fish parts if it were not for the utopia-gone-awry vibe. Two kilometers to the south landed us at Quiet Beach where we did enjoy an hour of walking in the waves. Our visit ended with a photo of a stray dog.
The phone company workers arrived at 8:00 PM to install our phone and DSL line. I assisted them and watched in disbelief as they scaled the walls of the neighbors' houses, stringing a new phone line from the corner of the block to our house. Our neighbors are expected to put up with our phone line crossing their balconies and looped various portions of the trim and gutters of their house.
I'm positive that more details such as these will follow when we travel around the country. For now, this list seems satisfactory.
