Friday, March 24
Serenity Beach, 11:52
We slept for ten hours or more: me ten hours, Irma more. Since breakfast ends at 9:30 we woke, washed, and waddled downstairs. I had my eggs soft-boiled, which I soon realised meant “warm but uncooked”. Tomorrow I will insist that I like my eggs like my detectives: hard-boiled.
After breakfast I had a shower, and posted “amusing” birthday greetings to Jutta, via Facebook. Irma ordered a rickshaw to Serenity Beach, which turned into a much longer ride than we expected.
The rickshaw has left and we stand looking at a small fishing village. We walk onto the sand and look at the sea. The beach contains endless shells, along with dead crabs and fish, as well as boats, nets and sleeping fishermen. In the distance I can see swimmers. To my right I can see sunbathers. Behind me stands a row of small cafés and huts.
We will sit upstairs in the Whats Up?!? café with a lemon soda each. Then we will sit in the Theevu Plage café with a lemon soda each. We will hunt for shells, one at a time, and then the owner of the café will offer us some of his.
We will attempt to get a rickshaw back, but the drivers will decide they don’t feel like driving. Eventually one will drive us to the main road and hand us to another driver who apparently feels less unenthusiastic about taking us back to the centre of Pondicherry than he does.
We will eat in an Indian pizza place with a wood-fired oven. According to where you look the owners have either named the restaurant Intalia or Italize. Of these I much prefer the second. The first feels clunky and “clever” in a too-obvious way. The second seems more mysterious and hints at italicize for no reason I can think of.
I suspect, from looking at the various leaflets, menus and wall-paintings that, alas, the first (the result, no doubt, of “brainstorming”) has replaced the second.
They have branches in Bangalore and Chennai. I may need to visit one to find out. Since my vegetarian fusion pizza called Let’s Go! tasted delicious, I feel more than willing to visit another branch.