je suis ici!

Travelled to Pondicherry with stoner dude that I've been sharing a room with for a few days. First attempt was to get the train from Egmore station, just across the road from hotel. Next train was not until 1830, some 7.5h in the future. Second attempt was to get a long distance bus. This decomposed into two subproblems: i) getting to the long distance bus, ii) getting the long distance bus. ii) turned out to be pretty trivial, but i) was harder as the tuk-tuk drivers demanded what we deemed to be an overgenerous fare (>=Rs100/-); however, once we'd agreed that we would never agree on a price, they helpfully told us how to get a direct bus from the bus stop that we were already standing it (it doubles as a tuktuk stand) for only Rs4/- each. Stoner dude suffers from eternal munchies but I managed to get him to postpone lunch enough to wait for the bus to actually show up. Onto the interstate bus, for Rs55/-; we get on and sit round for a few minutes; stoner dude gets the munchies and wanders off to a stand, leaving me on the bus in custody of his pack. Of course, moments after he wanders out of conciousness-range of the bus (i.e. as soon as he is not looking at it) the engine starts up and the bus begins to back out. I shout and shout out the window but am not prepared to get off myself. Of course, stoner has chosen to not go to the food 5m away from the bus, but wander off to one further down the concourse that appears to sell exactly the same stuff. Luckily the bus conductor has noticed that two white boys got on but that the bus is now moving with only one, so blows his whistles and scuttles into the crowds to find a white boy to replace the missing one. He chooses the right one and thrusts a dazed looking Irishman upon me. We sit on the bus for 4h until we come to a bus station. Its not clear if this is Pondicherry or not. We sit awhile, until the conductor decides that we should get off. We do. Rickshaw drivers want 100Rs to take us to a restaurant chosen from L-P (so that they will not try any "come to my friend's hotel", "come to my brother's restaurant" shit). Stoner is desperate to find a rickshaw which has a working meter - haha - I haven't seen a working meter in taxi or rickshaw since I've been in india, and if I ever did, I wouldn't trust it anyway. But the attempt is eventually enough to lower the price from 50Rs each to 30Rs for the two of us. We go to a nice little cafe near the beach. I have omlette sandwich and frites and french coffee. Then I walk to my hotel, where a woman who does not speak much english at all puts me in a nice room with a fan and a big bed and some lights. I offer my passport but am told to wait for big boss. I relax. Later on, a couple of hours later, after I have been lazing awhile, bossman turns up at door and speaks to me in French. I ask him if he would like my passport now and hand it over. He says he'll copy the details down and come back in a bit, which he does, sheepishly switching to English now that he's read my passport.
I set out to find an internet cafe. On the way, tuktuk drivers tout their vehicles to me in French. I ignore them, in French. People walk round with those stupid fluffy poodles as if they were Parisien, not Indian. I get to the internet place - coffee.com, with the cunning DNS entry coffeedotcom.net. It is nice - clean, fast net connection, big windows and wood panelling and music like some kind of North American coffeeshop.