Day 13: Tuesday, June 4th
June 13th was a whole lot of fun! We started off the day in the lazy beach town of Mahabalipuram where we enjoyed breakfast in a cafe under our hotel. Some of the team woke up before sunrise to see the famous Shore Temple, just a short distance away from where we were staying. Others (okay, fine, it was just me and Janet) slept in and really soaked in the views from the back of our eyelids.
Once everyone was back we loaded up the van and headed into town in search of a market. Today was the day that we had promised Poul for a long time- the day our crazy team would flip the script and cook American food for our Indian host family. We didn’t take long to decide that the obvious food of choice (coming from Austin, after all) was breakfast tacos. After some serious scouring, a bit of car sickness, and a couple incorrect stops, we found a stall willing to sell us everything we needed. Well... almost everything. Our vision for the perfect pico de Gallo meant we needed lots of limes. The regular food stall had no such “provisions” (as groceries are sometimes called here in India), so we got creative and started haggling with the smoothie shop next door. I gave an honest offer of ten rupees, but walked away sixty-five rupees poorer. Nonetheless, we were excited to head home and get cooking! It wasn’t until we started cutting our “limes” that we noticed something was off. Our host kids started laughing and asking Janet to tell us that we’d made a mistake.
Apparently, despite our shouting of the word “limes” at the smoothie shop at least a dozen times, we had overpaid (which was wild, considering how great of a haggler I was being- you can ask Victor, he was there and would *definitely* vouch for me) for LEMONS.
“No comment.” -Victor, just now
Despite our mistake, our breakfast tacos came out great! Our driver, Janet, Mr. Poul, our regular chef, and Shanmugam all enjoyed their tacos. Or at least that’s what Janet told us they said.
We wrapped up our night by circling up and sharing our highs and lows from the day. We all agreed that Mahabalipuram had been a great getaway and expressed a bittersweet disbelief that our time in Sirupinayur is coming to an end.
Thanks for reading, and, in conclusion, never trust a man who sells you a lemon for 65 rupees.
Sarah Jarrell
PUC India 2019