We've got to get out of this place

Since Monday's holiday (India's Independence Day) gave us a three day weekend, we decided we needed to celebrate by traveling somewhere outside of the city. There were two problems with this decision: 1.) we didn't decide to actually start planning anything until Thursday, and 2.) many other people in India shared our same idea...

Our first idea was to go to Kanyakumari, at the southern tip of India. I've heard it is beautiful as you can see the meeting point of the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The sunrises there are supposed to be magnificent. (Some of my trainees have sent me absolutely gorgeous pictures of it, reinforcing my desire to go.) However, by the time we booked the train tickets (on Thursday to leave Friday evening) , the train was full and we ended up on the waiting list somewhere around numbers 12 & 13. (I thought Indians didn't like to plan things???) :) We went to the station Friday evening and waited to see if we would get on...our numbers kept jumping up on the list-11 & 12...then all the way to 2 & 3...but, unfortunately, that's as far as we got. We didn't get on the train. :( :( :(

So, disappointed, we came home and began to consider our other options. We decided that it would be fun to go to Pondicherry with a couple of our friends. We started calling around to find a hotel...we made many calls, but all the hotels in Pondicherry are booked-WHAT? Not only was it a holiday weekend, but it was also the birthday of one of the founders of the ashram. WHAT LUCK! *sigh*

We all decided to stay in Chennai for the night and try to come up with something to do for the weekend. No good ideas, though. By Saturday evening, however, Liz & I were desperate to get out of the city-ANYWHERE out of the city for a change of pace. One of our friends said that we should head to Pondicherry anyway-if we were there in person, they wouldn't turn us away. We decided to head out, even though it was already 8:00 PM. We stopped at several hotels along ECR (East Coast Road) to inquire about rooms, but they were all booked.


This was a sign to us that we were not going to get a room here-there were already people sleeping in the reception area! :)





We eventually ended up in Mahabalipuram where we found a guest house with one A/C room and one non-A/C room. With the permission of the owner, we moved the beds from the non-A/C room into the A/C room and all piled in. (It was a bit cozy, but at least we were all able to sleep without sweating!)


We dragged ourselves out of bed the next morning...but Liz and I discovered that we were going to need to make several stops to the bathrooms throughout the day. After breakfast (which is hard to find after noon) we headed on our way for Pondicherry. We again stopped by several hotels and resorts along the way, but again they were all booked. We even stopped by Auroville to see if any of their guest houses were free. After driving around in search of many different people, we were told that they were all full-not surprising since it was The Mother's birthday. It was not late afternoon and we were starting to worry a bit about finding a place. One of the hotels we stopped at was able to "hold" rooms (non-A/C) for us at another hotel; however, by the time we found it, they had already released the rooms. Fortunately, they had two A/C rooms coming available at 8:00-about 45 minutes away (which seemed an eternity because we were all hungry and wanted to go somewhere to eat!) We did check in with no problems...except that we couldn't get any towels until the next morning. :) What luck!

We slept in late the next day (aaaahhh...restful sleep), got up and went shopping in the afternoon. We started back to Chennai a bit later than planned and I just barely scooted into work in time for my midnight shift.

I don't know; I think that if Pete has an anti-science zone around him, I might have an anti-hotel or anti-vacation zone around me. :)