Arrived and found somewhere to stay pretty easily, had a much, much needed shower then headed to the sea front as I'd read that the futher from the beach you were the town wasn't that great.Pondicherry (Puducherry) is a Frenchcolonial town and has a definate feel to it. We found our saving Grace on the sea front, it was only 8:30am but was already unbearably hot, a cafe called Le Cafe which as it suggests was French. We had a bit of a splurge for breakfast, fruit salad, iced coffee's, eggs on toast and croissants yum, and not a single curried item in sight. The rest of the day we battled with the internet, found my Aurodhan Art Gallery which was much better than I thought it would be with modern sculptures as well as paintings. The weather and richshaw drivers got to us today so Baskin and Robins had a visit. Vietnam visas are looking to be ready as the lovely woman at Nationwide found out the verifying amount for us so we could go ahead. Tom spoke to Steve and I spoke to Mum and Dad which was great cos we were more relaxed about the visas. No curries for us today Pizza Hut for dinner.

Friday, 9th October

So much cooler today, went back to Le Cafe and had mega croissants and hot chocolates. Went to do the emails and the letter of confirmation was already on thereso printed it off straight away, such a relief. We got the train to Villupuram and from there to Chennai, but got off a station early and got a connecting train straight to the airport so we didn't have to go into and back out of the city. Had a beer and calamari while waiting to check in then through we went, both pretty excited about getting to Hong Kong Airport and having a bit of Western culture for a bit, loved India but it can be hard work.