Day 6 at The Rising Star: Pondicherry!

Woke up at 3 am to a huge crash in our room!!

You can't tell from this pic but Krissy had a box of beads on her bed and she accidentally kicked them off... beads EVERYWHERE!!!!

Long Bus Ride!

Trying to sleep.

This morning we had to be up at 6 am.  The bus was leaving the school at 7am to leave for Pondicherry. It is a fun little beach town in South India.  We are excited to have a day off and hopefully do LOTS of shopping! The bus ride is 2 hours.  Remember that the driving here is crazy, so it’s pretty much a 2 hour rollercoaster ride. I got pretty carsick on the way there… Let’s just say Dramamine has been my new best friend. 

Gandhi

The beautiful Bengal Sea.

Street vendors EVERYWHERE!

Looking down the beach.

These people saw me taking pictures of the beach so they waved me down 

to take a picture of them and posed.  It was pretty funny lol.

Looking down the other side.

Elephant Hindu Temple where we found Luctsmi.

Just walkin through town.

Okay so once we arrived I think the first thing on EVERYONES list (besides staring with Jaws dropped at the HUUUGE Gandhi statue and the beautiful view of the Bengal Sea) was to get an elephant blessing.  People travel from all over India to this little Hindu temple in Pondicherry to be blessed by this elephant and have their babies and children blessed as well.  No one at the rising star has been able to get this done before because every time they come Luctsmi the elephant has been on break or not out.  It must have been our lucky day!! We found Luctsmi! Yay!  The way it works is you give Veluctsmi a present, I gave 5 rupees (I think of this like a quarter) and she kisses you on the head with her trunk and gives you a blessing.  I’m not exactly sure all of the history behind this.  It would be interesting to look into this a little more!  We didn’t actually go in the Hindu temple, although now I kind of wish we would have. We were wayyy to excited for our next stop.

The French bakery! We couldn’t wait to have “real food.”  The whole bus ride we were dreaming up what we wanted to eat. French fries, an ice cold coke, milkshakes, you know…. The American Dream.  Lucky for us, the French bakery had All of these things!!! OMG it was every bit as amazing as I hoped it would be.  We all kept joking that now we knew why the contestants on Survivor would give up immunity for food lol.

Ice cold ANYTHING is like heaven here. lol. Bonus if it's caffeinated.

Im a Coke girl myself, but this will do.

We saw our bus drivers at the French bakery and they were nice enough to stay with us the rest of the day!! Thank goodness. It was nice feeling like we had body guards.  Plus they knew the language.  All around, our day would not have been the same without these two.

Anund and Rodendron.

This cute little girl kept tugging at my legs for me to hold her.

Her parents LOOOOVED that the Americans wanted to play with her.

I can't tell you how many pics they took of us holding her lol.

Not sure I would just hand my baby off to someone from a foreign country, but to each his own.

I'm pretty sure this is what heaven looks like.

SHOPPING!

Now that we were all fed and happy it was time to shop!! We stopped first at a cute little shop that solds little bags, carvings, artwork and rugs.  The shop owner was adorable and was so fun to talk to! I found the most amazing elephant carving at this store that I wanted to bring home so bad.  We found this store right at the beginning of the day so I didn’t purchase the elephant so that I wouldn’t have to carry it around all day, and just my luck when we tried to go back to the store later to get it, we couldn’t find the shop!! UGSDFJLJSGDKj!!!! I hope that there is another store around here with a similar carving. It was beautiful.

Imagine this entire store coming home in my suitcase.

Yep, that just happened.

I'm not exactly sure who is taking this picture with my camera lol. 

Hopefully Anund. But I think it's cute.

Showing Anund everything we got!

Knick Knacks down, now on to what we came for… GENIE PANTS!!! We have loved wearing churdidars and genie pants while we are here so OF COURSE we have to bring TONS home!! We found the perfect shop and LITERALLY cleaned house.  I felt like a millionaire… I literally bought 10-12 pairs of genie pants and leggings. 7 Churdidars atleast.. and there was still Krissy and Sam!! We were grabbing things left and right and had the store upside down!! I started to panic at one point when they told me I was at 3,500 rupees thinking I had spent near 200 and decided it was time to be done shopping for ourselves.  When we made our purchases and finally calculated exactly how much we spent it was BARELY $65 American dollars!! SCORE!! I threw a few more outfits on the table and called it a day! Haha SOOOO FUN!! Our bus drivers spent the day with us and kept trying to get us to barter because we could get things for cheaper.. but to us they were already DIRT CHEAP and I felt worse about bartering then just paying them the full price, I would have paid double and still thought I was getting a good deal.  I think we literally paid that shop’s rent for the next year and at home I feel like I would have spent the same amount on dinner and a movie.  It’s crazy. Although we got lots for ourselves we got PLENTY of souvenirs for friends and family too!!

Henna Time!

I would have covered my entire body haha.

Buuut this will do.

Walking out of the shop there was a guy doing henna tattoos.  Ummm, YES PLEASE!!

We each got intricate henna tattoos up our arm and leg.  We are having so much fun out here!! Wearing our bindi’s, (forehead jewels) bangles, genie pants, and churdidars.  I’m pretty sure we fit in just fine now, in fact we might even be mistaken for locals!! ;)  It was fun to have one day to ourselves to really enjoy the culture here and shop!  We just kept looking around in disbelief. I can’t believe we really made it out here. I’m in India!!!

Awesome.

Just some pics of the streets. 

They are crazy!! I don't know how these drivers survive lol. 

Bus, pedestrian, and motorcycle all going in opposite directions towards eachother.

I think I almost had a heart attack, but somehow they all just know where to go.

This cute girl kept staring at us.

We waved her over to say "hi" and her parents wanted a picture.

They said she had never seen a white person before.

Well.... here we are haha.

Anund and Rondendron leading us through the streets!

We're totally in India.

This is the first place we have seen Diet Coke.

So we bought every single one they had.

Driving home, this truck was FULL of people!

They could see us filming and taking pics from the van, so they started posing and dancing!!

So fun!!

We really did have a blast just enjoying our day and finding great deals from the street vendors, but it was still heartbreaking to see so much poverty.  There were people living in the back alleyways of every street, many of the kids were naked and even some of the adults had nothing but OLD ragged linens and loincloths on.  I just wish I could give all of these people a hug and a hundred dollar bill.  We saw an old man with leprosy walking down the street and it just broke my heart to watch people go out of their way to avoid him, look down as they passed and pretend like that man didn’t exist.  I really hope that in time, the work that we are doing out here with the Rising Star will change that.  I hope that the people of India will some day be able to open their hearts to the leprosy afflicted in the same way that we have during our short stay.  Already I’m feeling like 3 weeks out here isn’t nearly enough time.

I love passing all of these cute villages.

Hindu Temple on the way home.

Men were inside worshipping.

Thought this was cool.

The sign as you pull up to The Rising Star school.

When it was time to go to the busses we were pretty excited to already be with Annund because this meant we would get the front seats the whole way home!! Woo hoo!! Annund kept asking us to sing for him.  He said that he loved the way English songs sound.  So we sang a nice mix of Spice Girls, Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain, Madonna, and Disney songs the ENTIRE bus ride home… oh and I when I say we sang, I mean we BELTED AT THE TOP OF OUR LUNGS.  Annunds favorite song was Who Let the Dogs Out! Haha!! So fun.

When we got back to the Elephant house it somehow turned into a HUGE pow wow in our room.  Everyone wanted to see our loot! I think we are for sure the best shoppers in the bunch lol. ;) No one could believe how little we paid for all of the cool stuff we bought.  I think we have now become personal shoppers for the rest of the trip!  Perfectly fine by me! 

Pow Wow in our room for show and tell!

So fun!

Everyone came!

Show and Tell!

We saw a HUGE toad on the way over to watch the movie for family time!!

I spy with my little eye a BIG FAT FROG!!

Can you see it?

After we all did a show and tell of our fun purchases for the day we went over to the outdoor cafeteria area and had a movie night with the kids.  We watched Zoo keeper. It was hilarious!! So So fun to snuggle with my boys from family time too!! There is so much love here.  I wish America was more like this.  I seriously am so sad at the thought of coming home in two weeks.  I just wish Jordan could be here with me to experience all of these things…. next summer. ;)