Exploring Vellore

So today I woke up around 7 am, unable to sleep due to jet-lag. Nicolette and I wandered over to the canteen which is next door and enjoyed a nice south Indian breakfast. We had dosas and chutney, and hot tea. I don't mind regular Indian chai, but the regular hot tea they serve at restaurants here bugs me. For some reasons, Indians believe that it is necessary to flood every cup of tea with massive quanitites of milk and sugar. Which I don't appreciate. But it's tea, so I drink it.
Then we took an auto rickshaw over to the CMC hospital campus, which is about 10 minutes away. The four of us wandered around Vellore, but most of the stores here are closed on Sunday. We ventured into a few clothing stores, where we were thoroughly unimpressed by the selection. And we got plenty of stares along the whole way. Which brings me to another subject. The Indian art of staring. Anytime a foreigner walks down the street here, they get stared at. Even though there are a decent number of foreigners here, since CMC is an internationally renowned medical school. Even I, who am dressed in traditional Indian clothing, get stared at. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I am physically bigger than the average Indian man. :-) And, since coming here, I've been approached (on more than one occasion) by locals who will start speaking to me in Hindi. One guy asked me if I was a medical student from north India. In Hindi, no less. My Tamil and Hindi language skills are both pretty broken so I can't respond the way I want, so this frustrates me.
But I digress. My family returned to Chennai today. So the rest of the day I will spend wandering around here. If I'm brave, I might venture out to the fruit stand and buy some fruit. I'm craving sweet, healthy food. That is not diarrhea-inducing. But it's hot and humid and all I want to do is languish in the comforts of a/c. So we'll see how far I make it.