January 16 Second day of Pongal, Puducherry

So far today has been very frustrating. The good part was that Guna, the front desk guy offered to help me with the quest for a new iPhone. Of course I had to pay him. He knew all the iPhone outlets, and it was a huge run around on the back of his scooter to get a reputable outlet. Plus he took me to a place where I could actually make very very low cost international calls. This was a huge bonus. No one had volunteered this information. The successful part was that I actually called my bank, and they allowed me to draw money, enough to survive a week maybe more. The hard part was that the Indian bank would only let me withdraw in small amounts so that it could charge me for every single withdrawal. So I abandoned the bank, and paid a bit more for a new iPhone 6,  64 MB so that I have the same good camera. I will virtually sleep with that camera around my neck now. I have zero confidence that anything will come from the police. I don't expect the phone to be found either. The whole business has set me back a lot, and shaken my confidence here. Guna was amazing. He took me on his scooter all over to many iPhone outlets, checking prices. I am getting used to traffic on a motorbike now!! Then when I went to get the SIM, and set up phone etc they could not do it. Another delay, so the phone is still not functional due to the internet carrier's ability to provide wifi. This is normal.

I am now heading out on Beach drive to get some sea air, and see if day 2 of PONGAL is being celebrated. It is the day to give thanks for cows, and dairy produce. I will report back later.

Back again. No celebrations of day 2 of Pongal. I think everyone does this at home, and there are no public celebrations. Got some air, walked and met some North Indians. They were taking pics at the French monument on Beach road as well. I took a pic with my new iPhone. The guys were very friendly, perhaps lonely as they can't speak Tamil, and Tamilians don't like to speak Hindi. Anyways I met the group of them, and we had a coffee, and I came home. We had a really good walk before the coffee.Then off to Vodafone to get the phone set up. Well, we only got the phone and internet working, but I will have to wait till tomorrow to get the phone fully functional, and get my iPhone contacts from my old phone going. It is a newer model of the iPhone 6 so things are slightly different. I will definitely have to get a part time job on return to pay off so many travel expenses here. I took a few pics but can't transfer anything until there are more adjustments made to my phone. We wait.....thank you for reading. As you gather, patience is what I came to India to develop. Development in that area is still not fast enough...lol. Have a great day or evening!! By the way, the food here, all vegetarian, is excellent, and I enjoy it every night. Not too spicy.