Mamallapuram/Pondicherry ... and sickness

This weekend Jen, Colin, and I decided to take a 2.5hr car ride to a coastal town called Mamallapuram. We stayed at the Sea Breeze hotel (it was decent) and ate at a restaurant on the beach. The next morning we hired a tour guide to visit the shore temple and Arjuna's Penance. Apparently Mamallapuram (which also has 4 other names) has five different types of stone architecture: cave type, flat-faced type, temple type and two others??? The guide was great and taught us a lot of the history, but I just couldn't get over how hot I was. I swear I was sweating from sweat glands I didn't even know that I had. Absolutely brutal. We came back, showered, ate lunch, and took a 2 hour ride to Pondicherry. Pondicherry is also a beach town, with French influence. There were a ton of foreigners there. And they all seemed to be...well I can only describe them as hippies on drugs. The town was crazy crowded and the beach was not nice. The hotel we stayed in was totally mediocre. And the restaurant we went to for dinner was awful, even though it is the most I have paid for a meal since being in India. All in all, as you can probably tell, the weekend was a bust, and totally not relaxing.

Not to mention that everyone just seems to want to cheat us out of money. The car service which is set up through the school, is clean and air conditioned. However, the driver asked for extra money and asked me not to tell his boss. I'm still trying to figure out what I would have gained from this transaction? Then wen we got back his boss (Mr. Paul) was waiting for us and asked to be paid more than what was agreed on. Here is the conversation:

Mr.P : uhhh, Seema it would be 6,000
Me: no, we agreed on 5,600
Mr.P: oh, no, it was 5,600 + or - 5%
Me: 5% for what? I only agreed to pay more if we went above 600 Km. and we only went 400Km so if anything it should be -5%
Mr.P: no 6,000
Me: NO, I really don't like this back and forth I'm only paying what we agreed before...

I mean come on...yes it is only and extra $10, but I really hate being cheated. And I swear there is no logic to it all they just ask for whatever they want. Crazy. The best way to deal with it all is to just hand them whatever you want to pay them and walk away.

But the topper to the entire weekend was getting sick on Sunday night... I will spare you the details.

I have been so careful...I drank only water that I bought from the canteen on campus, brushed and gargled with that bottled water, never used the drinking glasses anywhere, and never ate anything raw. But yet, still afflicted with some stupid GI bug...maybe and most likely bugS. Well the doctors here did not take any chances and placed me on a crazy cephalosporin (cephalexin). So I'm feeling a bit better, but I'm basically room bound and so I haven't been able to go to work for the past two days.

Hopefully this won't be a trend.