...we missed out on visiting Kochi due to torrential rains, waded in ankle deep puddles around the city center to find a bus to the airport, failed and settled for a tuk tuk instead, after which we almost missed the fight to Chennai because the ride took nearly two hours
...we booked seats for ourselves on two separate flights to Calcutta staggered over a couple hours to save €€€ - here's to some adventure!
...we tasted chikka and pomegranate juice; now from what's available this season it seems that we only got butter fruit, mukkani and fig juices left to sample
...tasted the supposed Tamil culinary delight - the pongal - and were not impressed
...we gave the seemingly messy, noisy and chaotic Chennai a wide berth and straight after landing dashed for the former French colony of Pondicherry three hours away - by taxi
...we were delighted to find so many traces of French presence in the area, from street names to French high schoolers and policeman's hats to omnipresent decent coffee
... we tasted the local take on almond croissant, apple turnover and raisin escargot (?) - they looked way better than they tasted and once again we concluded Indians should stick to the kinds of bread they do best; the pain au chocolat and the macaroons (yes!) were close enough to the originals though
...we lazed about the town, got our first sunburn (a clear, beautiful sky), wondered why the nice pier is restricted to port staff only and watched the affluent, hip Chennai crowds spend their hard-earned money in overpriced "French" bistros and bars, after which I gave in to the temptation and had a good beef steak and Kama - disappointing shrimps - in a plush, snobby patio restaurant - making it this trip's most expensive grub so far at €14 total (and preceded by the record-breaking croissant breakfast at €8)
...we enjoyed a weird dessert called Halva trio, consisting of sweet halva-like pulp with three layers: ginger-, beet- and carrot-flavored; creative and yum!
...we noticed Pondicherry was plenty quiet compared to the rest of India - dogs refused to bark and even storms were completely soundless, just weird, powerful lightning flashes at night; maybe it's too hot for them to bother making noise?
...we parted ways for a couple hours, with Kama's flight to Calcutta leaving several hours ahead of mine, learning that the familiar policy of not letting anyone into the airport building earlier than 2 hours prior to departure was still very much in place - so she goes in and I wait 3 hours outside, thanking Indian architects for merciful benches outside and cursing them for the lack of toilets
...at the risk of coming off as grumpy I noted with annoyance there is not a single operational wifi hotspot in an otherwise big and modem Chennai airport domestic terminal
...I marveled once again at why despite how all the boarding passes, bags, baggage tags, shoes, belts, wallets and sanitary napkins are scrupulously double-, triple- and quadruple-checked, scrutinized, frisked, x-rayed and generally taken apart at Indian airports with a lot of pump, self-importance and ponderous fussing-about, the security still managed to miss a knife (in my case) and a bottle of water (Kama's) in our carry-ons
...I was amused to find out that an electric oven was among the many items available for sale on board Air India planes