I hope you like the scarf

Clare, Uttam and Pete

The autorickshaw Uttam drives now is one he rents for around Rs 200 per day. “I pay for tyres, brake pads, brake fuel and so on,” he says. Pete asks if he’ll buy his own one day, and he tells us he’s saving for one, but saving is tough going.

I enquire about the Indian driver licensing system. Apparently, it exists. All up, it costs several thousand rupees to become fully licensed. First up they have to sit a learner’s licence – “You can sit that when you are 18. Then you go for private licence within one to six months, and then after three years you can go for government licence,” Uttam says. “That one gives you discounted medical care – they pay 25 per cent if you have a crash – and other benefits too. But not if you crash when you are driving drunk,” he adds. “You need to renew your government licence every three years, as well. And then you can get your commercial licence, but the government licence is good enough, so I do not need this one. Uttam tells us the government licence costs around Rs 3000, but it can change “according to goodwill”. Uttam says, “If you know someone in government, it can be little bit cheaper, say, 2500 rupees only.” It seems the notion “It’s who you know, not what you know” is universal.

Barn’s phone rings in the rickshaw, and it’s an Indian number calling. We assume it’s a hotel about a booking, but he looks confused and repeats the caller’s introduction. “It’s my new friend calling? Sorry, who is this?” He explains when he hangs up that it was a customer service representative from Vodafone India who he had spoken with earlier in the day when he was having issues with his sim card. The first time they spoke, Barn was having trouble remembering his new Indian number and she had given him a lecture: “You are verrrry confused, sir. Please write down your number on a piece of paper, and then read it out to me exactly as it is written down.” Just as they were making headway, he accidentally put her on hold and the call was disconnected. Amazingly, this girl displays exceptional customer service contradictory to my earlier rant about Vodafone. She had saved Barn’s number and rang him back from her personal phone when her shift was over, to see if the issue had been resolved. Ten points, Vodafone India. She then proceeds to call him back five more times in a stalkerish manner. Negative ten points, Vodafone India.

Our tour of Varanasi finishes with a trip to the Muslim Cooperative Society – the oldest manufacturing area in Varanasi. A Muslim man shows us around, and we bypass the mosques and head down some alleyways to see silk khadi (hand weaving). We’re told it’s a slow process, with some Muslim dresses taking five to six weeks to complete. A group of men and a young boy are painstakingly threading silver beads onto a piece of silk and explain that silver ones are used for wedding garments only. We meet another man who’s weaving 7000 Kashmiri silk threads finer than strands of hair on an ancient leg-operated machine that has programming cards with codes for different patterns. It’s the same kind of device they’ve been using since the 14th century, and we’re told it’s like an early version of a computer. Again it’s painstaking work; “I’m going to look at my pashminas differently now,” Clare says. Me too.

The man showing us around says they export to lots of countries: “Europe, the USA, Jordan, Dubai, Australia – many, many counties.” “New Zealand?” we enquire. “Many, many countries – but no, not New Zealand. You know Australia? We export our bedspreads for 8000 rupees to Deevad Joes.” “Ohhh, David Jones!” we chorus.

No more duvets, please!

Before we can return to Uttam in the rickshaw, there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. We have to visit the man’s silk store, where he proceeds to unfold all the king-sized silk duvets he has, trying to tempt us to buy. There’s ones with pictures of the fort we visited this morning, more with elephants. Initially, none of us has the heart to say we're not in the market for duvets, but as we slowly drown in fabric, we shake our heads, saying we can’t take any more luggage. But he persists. “We can post!” he says, continuing to unfold. “They’re washable in liquid soap!” he enthuses. “Made from baby cocoon silk!”

He gets out some Rs 3000 ($75) pashminas made from the tummy hair of Himalayan goats. “We have ones from the beard part, too!” he exclaims. "God, they're expensive," Barn mumbles. We start to look at each other. There’s only one thing to do now. One of us will have to buy something so we can escape. I should get my mum something nice, but not $75 nice (sorry, Mum). The man looks at Barn, suggesting he buy a scarf. “He doesn’t have a wife,” I say. “Girlfriend?” the man replies. “You like the green one, sir? Maybe for a business friend?” We all laugh, imagining Barn buying one for his new boss at Russell McVeagh.

At this point, it’s getting dire. I ask if he has any cheaper ones and he brings out a pile that are only 50% pashmina, for Rs 300 ($7.50). Taking one for the team, I pick up one the colour of Mum’s mother-of-the-bride outfit from my sister’s wedding last year. “I’ll take it!” I say, not even bothering to bargain with him. I hand over the 300 rupees and we bolt out of there.

On the way back to our hotel, we ask more about Uttam’s marriage. He says he’s 24 and has been married for two years. Despite his family’s protests (he was meant to have an arranged marriage with a family friend’s daughter), he married for love. “I met her in Assi [Assi Ghat]. I see her one or two times, and we talk. Then friendship turns to love.” In Indian marriages a girl’s father has to pay the husband – it’s a tradition from hundreds of years ago. The government is trying to outlaw it, as apparently it’s not uncommon for women to be murdered after their dowry has been handed over. But Uttam reckons the government can’t do anything about. “For good family, nice family, you just have to pay. But she have no dowry, she have no money, but I say I can do without that.”

They had a small wedding, marrying in a temple, with just a few friends there. “My family would not attend, and her family would not come either.” Uttam tells us that he had great support from a Swiss girl, Anna, who he met when she was volunteering for Red Cross in the area. “She was good friend, she support me a lot and help me, but she’s gone back to college, to university now. Maybe she will come back again, she said maybe in five years, so maybe in 2015,” he says, with a sadness in his eyes.

Taking one for the team

When we get back to the hotel, Erin and Harriet have deteriorated. The poor things are in pain and in need of medical attention, so Barn calls the doctor. One arrives around 7.30pm, diagnoses the girls and prescribes a host of medicines. Barn, the legend, then hops on a motorbike driven by the hotel manager, in search of a 24-hour pharmacy. He’s gone for what seems like an age, and returns, valiant, medicines in tow, having visited six pharmacies. They’d also had to make a return visit to the doctor, as he’d prescribed a medicine that either did not exist or was not available in any of the five pharmacies visited previously. What a champion. At 9.30pm, we dose the girls up and send them to bed, before we head to the rooftop restaurant of our hotel for some dinner and to get Barn a well-deserved beer after a frantic day in the Holy City of Varanasi. Mum, I hope you like the scarf.

J’adore Pondicherry

Pondicherry is a city I’ve wanted to visit since I read Yann Martel’s Man Booker prize-winning novel, Life of Pi, a story about Pi Patel, the sole survivor of a ship-wreck who lives on a lifeboat for seven months with a Bengal tiger from Pondicherry Zoo, where his father is proprietor.

Living the Life of Pi

It’s lovely to finally be here, and from the minute we arrive in Pondicherry, or ‘Pondy’ as the locals call it, the city’s French presence is obvious and enchanting. We open the double-doors to our room off a shared conservatory and reading area at our hotel, the gorgeous Les Hibiscus B&B in the French Quarter on the east side of town. The Hibiscus’ four-poster beds, matching furniture, and mod-cons are a very welcome sight. The French part of Pondicherry is incredibly quaint, with its cafes serving crepes and pain au chocolat, and a French Riviera-style boulevard leading to a giant statue of Mahatma Gandhi (who also has the main shopping area named after him – ‘M.G. Road’ to those in the know). Its cobbled streets use the French Rue, and we’re told that 70% of the population here speaks the language of love.

From Rues to ruins

Sadly, there’s something not quite so lovely about Pondicherry right now. It was hit badly by Cyclone Thane that swept through Tamil Nadu last week, and there are signs of destruction on every corner we turn. Its central park has been completely ripped to shreds and is cordoned off. Every tree in the park has been lifted from its roots, and bushes, branches, debris and tree stumps lie over the Rues we traverse. The people of Pondy remain upbeat and are working industriously to clear the rubble, and some local boys enlist Barn’s help to pull a fallen tree over a church fence, tug-of-war style. The boys laugh candidly when they fail in their attempts, and happily persevere, but it’s a heart-wrenching sight. The crumbled red brick walls we see are an all-too-soon reminder of Christchurch. The damaged churches, too.

Tug of war with nature

Pondy is a city of more than 220,000, and so it doesn’t quite escape the maddening Indian road culture. We lunch at a café called The Little Big Shop at the newly built Villa Shanti hotel on the east side, before venturing further into town to the Pondicherry Bazaar, on the busy M.G. Road. We’re swept up into the frenetic traffic, but slowly gain more confidence in walking out onto a street with hundreds of scooters and autorickshaws heading straight for you. I’ve now worked out that the majority of tooting (a couple of short beeps every 5 or 10 seconds) is more of a courtesy – an ‘FYI, I’m right behind you’; it’s when you get the 10-second long hand-on-horn that you know you’re really in the wrong.

I drag Pete into a fabric shop and survey at the array of colours and styles of scarves on offer. I decide on a paua-shell bluey-green, but it’s not hemmed, so the owner of the shop takes us down underground, beneath the shop, to have his tailor finish it. We watch him work the machine practically with his eyes closed, and have the obligatory conversation about New Zealand, and ask a couple of questions of our own.

Dinner later in the night is at the Satsanga, as recommended in Lonely Planet, but we arrive late and there’s not much choice left. The vegetable curry I end up with is delicious, though, and we both polish off more large bottles of Kingfisher. I can see a worrying trend here. Those who said I’d lose weight in India were completely mistaken.

Moove out of my way

The next day I photograph huge cows in the street, rustic old bikes leaning against brick walls, and more of the mass cyclone clean-up. I go and get passport photos taken, as I need some to purchase a sim card for my phone here, and the photo studio I go to has a roomful of Mac operators out the back, busy on Photoshop, lightening dark faces in family photos of Indian weddings. It seems strange to me that in the East they’re obsessed with pale skin, while we Westerners go to such pains to tan up in summer.

Barn and I navigate our way through the busy M.G. Road again to a Vodafone India store where a poster advertises ‘Matrimony TXT Alerts and more!’ While I’m there, it dawns on me that for once in my life, the Vodafone helpdesk is in the same country as I am. I imagine I’d still get the same poor service, even if calling from here. Before we left Auckland, we rang them to get our phones switched to roaming, and when I told the operator I was going to Nepal, he sounded completely baffled. “Nepal? What is this? I have never heard of it.” Barn received a similar response from his Vodafone customer service representative: “Is that the N-E-P-A-L one?” he said, typing a search into his computer.

After the most delicious South Indian Thali lunch (breads and rice accompanied by 10 small dishes of curry, chutney, sauces, pastes and yoghurt) at Surguru, also recommended by Lonely Planet, we farewell the cyclone-torn but still beautiful French city of Pondy, and I swear I’ll one day come back to see it in its full glory. Pondy – je t’amie.