travelling with laughter

They were really nice, they shared with us there sweets, bacardi and there love for Shakira, infact they were obsessed with her, i think its all the hip shaking and writhing that does it!!! We met a load of the team, all of them six foot something as you can imagine, towering over the two of us like big friendly giants. They were good company and we had a lot of laughs, however during all this fun i did get a complex about my hair......i was told i should grow it as then i would look beautiful...and then that....as i had my hair short i didn't want to be beautiful did i? ahhhh! Oh well i will get over it! So getting to know the lads we were invited to go and watch them play in the tournament, which we happily accepted.

Arriving in Pondicherry i met up with Andrew and Rachel who i had met on the train journey from Chengdu to Lhasa, the 48 hours 'bonding' train journey making us now good friends. I was also reunited with Ant which made me very happy indeed and met his lovely parents Steve and Maureen who would later make Pondicherry feel like a home from home. Sharing our tales of the basketball games, Steve and Maureen decided to come along with Sharon and i, we left Ant in front of the telly as an Arsenal game was on and i know where his priorities lie with that one.

Zipping along in a tuk tuk as we didn't know exactly where the games were being held we arrived at the gates of a school with loads of people and kids milling about outside and waited until they were open ... They were loads of children there in an array of beautifully coloured school uniforms, the younger girls in pinafores and the elder ones in stunning saris all lining up. As we entered the gates we decided to follow the herds of people flocking towards an arena area. Doing the Indian shuffle we inched our way along holding hands as to not lose anyone, though i think we would have found each other without too much problem as we were the only tourists there!

We seemed to create quite a commotion as we entered the outdoor stadium, "hellos" were enthusiastically showered on us, hand shaking thrust upon us and waves galore! We weaved our way through the lines and lines of school kids trying to find the basketball courts......ummm something didn't seem right. I knew the tournament was a big game, all of the states of India take part and the team we were going to watch were the reigning champions but had all the scholars come to see it aswell? Looking around we discovered we weren't in the right place at all.. in fact we had just invited ourselves to a Science Fair!!!!! Hilarious!........

Heading back to the main gates we asked this time and made it to the courts....... we had a long wait for any kind of action things seemed to be moving along in Indian time.....ie. delayed. So we decided to go and check out the 'science fair' whilst we waited..... as we descened the stairs to leave we found we couldn't we were stuck..... We found ourselves stuck between a wall and the stairs as we were bombarded with girls carrying flags heading towards the court signifying the start of the games. How we didn't get spiked i don't know but i am thankful as they seemed a bit lethal... poles going this way and that as they negotiated the stairwell. Following them back up we watched the procession of teams entering and spotted our team, team Utterchan, equally we were spotted fast too. After the procession they came over to say hi,meeting Steve and Maureen and in an unintentionally insulting way referred to Maureen as Grandma..... this escalated into laughs....... what a greeting!

Recovering from laughter induced stomach cramps we watched the game and they were good in, fact the other team didn't stand a chance....."go boys, whoop whoop whoop whoop!!!". It was great to go and see something a bit different, i was very happy with our invite and went back for another game. Unfortunately we didn't make the finals as were busy drinking and celebrating Christmas, but i hope to find out the results soon!