Weekend in Pondicherry (part 2)

I spent this weekend in Pondicherry again, this time to ride the motorbike. We set off on Friday evening and after a good three hours we were in Pondicherry. This time we caught a luxury bus, which also only cost 55 rupees, but you had your own seat (a luxury on Indian buses) and no neighbour practically sitting on your lap. Normal Indian buses have seats too, but they're designed more for very slim Indians than for slightly overweight Europeans…

Ruben, the Dutch intern I bought the motorbike from, rode it to Pondicherry. He has friends there who run a resort. In this case, resort means several huts, one shower and one toilet. We spent the weekend there and enjoyed the sea. The huts are right on the water and you basically sleep outside (the huts are really just a roof that keeps the rain off).

Since we arrived very late on Friday, I used Saturday for riding the motorbike and swimming. Various people came away with minor injuries (mostly burns from exhaust pipes); I only got a small blister on my left thumb, probably because I was riding a bit too tensely.

On Sunday I rode back on my motorbike with Francis, my new French flatmate. Since I didn't yet trust myself with the long ride, Francis drove; he's a fairly experienced rider. The ride went quite well, but when we got to Chennai the bike started acting up. Either it had simply overheated or it's something else. I'll probably have to take it to the workshop again. Anyway, in Chennai Francis ran a red light (actually a perfectly normal thing here in India). Unfortunately we were stopped by the police, and not just by one officer you could have bribed, but by several. What made it especially tricky was that Francis doesn't have a licence. Well, after some discussion, threats to confiscate the bike and so on, we paid 1,000 rupees. By Indian standards that's a huge sum, about €20. So we more or less got off lightly…