Upon arrival in Auroville...

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So I finally made it here last night, after a grueling week of on-and-off travel. Here's how it went:

I flew out of New York on Monday evening, just after it got dark. My neighbor on the plane was an elderly Russian woman whose husband teaches Political Science at Brown. She told me about a tea that I could drink that would help keep mosquitos away, but I can't remember what it was. Oh well.

After I arrived in Bombay, I stayed (against my better judgement) at the first hotel that was pitched to me. I was exhausted, so I would have settled for anything, but in retrospect, I wish I had thought more carefully about it. It was overpriced, cramped, and the service was... well... non-existent. It was air-conditioned though, so I took a nap, and only stayed for a few hours and payed a fraction of the tariff.

The next hotel I went to was a much better deal, the Hotel Causeway. It was also air-conditioned, a luxury I will surely have to learn to live without, but it was about a third of the price as the other place. It's located on the Colaba Causeway, appropriately enough, and it's in an area called - you guessed it - Colaba. It's the main tourist area of Bombay, and I certainly saw my fair share of westerners.

One who I had the gall to introduce myself to was Jeff, and he was taking the month before school starts to travel around India with two of his friends, Mike and Connor. I went out and had a few drinks with them on Thursday night at a place called just steps from my hotel and a popular hangout for tourists and locals alike.

On Friday morning, we all met at 11 at the Gateway of India, a prominent landmark in Bombay, and home to the biggest group of pidgeons I've ever seen in my life, to take an hour long boat trip to Elephanta Island. If anybody reading this has the time to do so, I highly recommend spending a day here. It is one of the most incredibly places I've ever seen - an isolated, quaint, scantly inhabited island riddled with monkeys, upon which are carved the most magnificent temples and sculptures, all out of solid rock.

Our tour guide, Krishna, explained that the caves took over a thousand years to carve out, and pointed out all of the perfect symmetry and the mathematics that went into creating such a structure. After the tour, we sat and waited for the boat at a little island restaurant, complete with bars on the windows to keep out the monkeys.

My train ride to Chennai seemed daunting - 23 hours on a hard sleeping mat surrounded by people curiously staring at me the whole way- but it was much more tolerable than I had anticipated. I slept from the time I boarded until sunrise, and after that the time passed quickly enough. There was a curtain that closed off my berth to the hallway, and the scenery was fantastic.

Arriving in Chennai was frustrating; there were no foreigners, as far as I could tell, and I was, needless to say, a little worried about the trip to my hotel for the night. I had considered going straight to Pondicherry when I arrived, but I was tired and wanted to sleep.

My auto-rickshaw driver kept insisting on a fee of 200 rupees, a quality I had not observed in drivers until then. Most of the time, a tentative step away from their vehicle will chop the price in half. Mostly because I was so tired, and partly because he didn't speak any English, I agreed to his fee. He took me to the Hotel Thaj Regency (NOT recommended) where there was no air conditioning, several windows with no glass, and cockroaches the size of rats, rats the size of cats, etc. But I survived the night curled up close to my mosquito coil, which apparently lasted about half the the night, judging by the number of bites on my forearms and feet. I left first thing in the morning for the bus station.

The ride here was fine, if a little cramped. I ended up having to take an auto back toward Chennai a little bit because I didn't get off at the right stop. After walking around in the wilderness for what seemed like hours (and very well might have been; I don't have a watch), I found the Mitra Youth Hostel, a boomerang-shaped three story building where I have a double room, the other bed in which will probably be occupied by the end of the day. The staff is lovely, and I had a delicious breakfast this morning.

Speaking of the morning, I've never had such a pleasant alarm clock. I awoke to the sounds of birds first, then to the sound of a flute playing in the distance. Soon I began to hear people stirring and going to the shower room, some singing on the way. To make things even nicer, when I stepped out onto the balcony I saw a peacock perched on top of the other side of the building. It was by far the largest bird I have ever seen, it's tail trailing behind it a good 3 or 4 feet. It's colors were magnificent too, enough to make me grab my camera and climb up the stairs to the roof. By the time I got there, however, it had gone. Disappointed, but still impressed, I went to take my shower.

Now here I am, at the Solar Kitchen Internet cafe, which is less of a cafe and more of a computer lab, but I'm not complaining. The internet is free and the atmosphere is friendly, which is more than I can say for a lot of India.

I'm staying for a week here, maybe longer, but then I plan on going up north to Leh, one of the northernmost hill stations of India. It closes down after mid-October or so, so I need to go soon if I'm going to at all. I think I'll go to Pondicherry today to explore; there's a free service to and from the city.

Peace,
Anthony

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