The French bit

Slowly moving north and stopped in Puducherry. Town of which is full of French character. Part of the town is called “White Town” and this is next to the beach. Many streets have French signs, French cafes and many speaking French residents. Very strange to walk from this area and into the rest of Puducherry real India.
As we walked around we came across a paper factory where visitors were most welcome. There were Europeans in there volunteering with the production of paper and its products. The order they were working on was from the Indian Government who had ordered paper to record their archives by hand!!!!. The painstaking task of checking for flaws was explained in detail to us. Using a craft knife, and good eyesight,  looking for minute pieces of material pressed into the paper during production. Found out they use tea, corn plant leaves, hay and flowers to create the parchment. Very interesting.
We then moved on to a beautiful temple (Elephant Temple). Shame no cameras but it was exceptionally colourful and full of people. We were allowed in which was great.
Off to the Le Café Arts for lunch and met a young couple who had rented out their London house and quit jobs to travel. Very interesting and good to swop travel tips. Them to us more than us to them 😀🌴.
Nice walk down a great Promenade and then back to our dwelling. Now that is a interesting place. Imagine a peaceful haven behind a metal wall. Nice villa with nice pool. Friendly hosts and clean rooms. But don’t look over the walls to a huge rubbish dump!!!! Even our driver said “oh my goodness”. Down the very tiny back streets with in an area of very poor status. Lots of midges due to the situation. And food was from local take away given to us in the foil trays and cold. Very basic breakfast not even fruit. Sorry Daya you just did not make the mark as far as we are concern.
Moved after two night to a hotel in town.
Next day we went to a place called “Auroville”. You might like to google this as a very interesting concept of a universal town all living in peace and harmony, all creeds, no religion and no politics.
Separate blog for this one. Photos below are a mixture of the last few days.
We are now trying to pack to go and fly to Bangalore. Having had a car for over 3 weeks we seem to have gained stuff!!😏😉😎🌴🤔