pondi and auroville!

The weekend after our trip around Shravanabelagola, Belur, Halebidu, and Mysore, I attended three days of class and then left again with Nia and Renee to go to Pondicherry, a city on the eastern Indian coast in the state of Tamilnadu. It was initially a French colony and the French influence there is absolutely noticeable...there are french restaurants everywhere, the streets have french names, and the people greet you in french as you walk down the streets. i cannot relay the surprise i felt the first time i heard indians speaking french so perfectly...it seemed like such a foreign thing, but they worked it with ease and incredible fluency. i was very impressed.

we took another overnight bus with three of our other friends from Bangalore (but who were going there on their own schedule, their own trip) and again arrived at 4:30 in the morning. we looked for hotels in the area where one of our friends (a French guy, best of all) was supposed to be staying, but nothing was open that hour. we shortly found ourselves sitting on the stoney "beach" watching one of the most beautiful sunrises i have seen here in india. the ocean was a pale, silvery color, almost melding into the sky...you could just barely distinguish the line between the two. the clouds were massive and cottony, but there were breaks in them where a bright red or orange would shine through. It was a beautiful way to greet the day.

After the sunrise our group split up, I went off with Nia and Renee to find a hotel while the other three that had come with us did the same. Nia and Renee and I went to maybe 5 or 6 hotels, looking at rooms and comparing prices before we finally decided on one that had a nice yard and a terrace in the back. We left our things, got some breakfast at a french cafe, and drank kombucha tea before heading out to find a place to rent scooters so we could move around the city more easily. we got sidetracked easily though..we spent the entire morning looking in little shops that we found on the way to the rental place. then when we finally arrived, we discovered that none of us could rent scooters because we had not brought our licenses..so we got bicycles instead. by that time it was hot...it was midday and much hotter and brighter than it ever is in bangalore. we went back to our hotel and napped for a few hours.

when we woke up it was evening..we got our bikes and went out into the city again, playing follow the leader and taking random turns whenever we felt like it. we had no purpose, just so see what the place was like. i already liked the city at the beginning, but being able to ride around it made it just so nice...it felt a lot to me like Santa Cruz, CA, which is a place i already hold dear to my heart.. we rode around and then met up with our other friends and went out to a dinner together. It was actually Renee's birthday, so we had an occasion to celebrate. we ate at a french restaurant and then went out to a bar for about 45 minutes before it was going to close. when closing time came, though, it was pouring so tremendously outside that we couldn't leave. the bar-owners let us stay for a while until the rain let up, but when it didn't stop we ended up riding our bikes back to our hotel as fast as we could...and we still arrived soaked. not to mention that outside of our hotel everything was basically flooded. we trudged through a couple of feet of water, and went inside to safety soaking wet. Renee went to sleep soon after but Nia and I grabbed our singing bowls and went to the terrace in the back of the hotel. in the wee hours of the morning with rain pouring everywhere around us, we sat there listening to and absorbing the vibrations we were creating, and reflecting on the magic of the moment...absorbing the reality of where we were finding ourselves and what we were able to do there...


the following day we had a late start. we woke up late, took our time getting ready, had lunch instead of breakfast, and then hopped on our bikes and took an hour long bike ride in the heat of the day out to Auroville. Auroville is meant to be a completely sustainable community. word is that you can't use money inside, it's based on the barter system...anyone can go and live there but you have to apply to be able to get in and when you apply you say what it is that you plan to contribute or what you want to learn during your stay there. there are people from about 35 or 40 different countries that live there...and really, that was the place where we saw the most white people, the most foreigners. it was surprisingly comforting.
visitors are not often allowed to enter and before going in you have to watch a movie to learn what the community is about and how it works...although it would have been interesting, we didn't really have that much time so we couldn't go all the way to auroville. instead, we rode our bikes almost to the entrance and found a little place with shops where we spent hours and hours. there were only like 6 or 7 good shops, but they were SO good we just couldn't leave...such good clothes, jewelry, art..

by the time we left it was almost dark and the rain was beginning again...during our ride back to pondicherry we were going as quickly as possible to beat the rain yet, ironically, we were riding straight into the storm. out by auroville it was still dry when we left, but as we biked down the road we could see the lightning flashing ahead of us...and we pedaled as fast as we could into it. fortunately it didn't rain quite as hard as it had the night before. we reached our hotel, changed clothes, and then headed out again for the evening...but this time to meet up with one of my professors from Italy who was actually in India at the same time and precisely in pondicherry. we went out with her and her roommate to an indian restaurant and then walked around the city for a bit...it was so lovely to be able to see her again. i can't say we spoke much italian, but the fact that i could see her again, and in such a place, was magnificent. she always was my favorite professor out there...she is such a cheerful woman and just wonderful to be with. i was very content. =)





and then came our last day...that morning some more of our USAC friends from Bangalore had arrived in Pondicherry, so we met up with them in the morning and went out to breakfast before heading out towards Auroville again. instead of going to the shops this time, we actually went to the beach...out by auroville is the only beach where there is actual sand and you can swim....at the beach in pondicherry near our hotel it was mostly huge rocks and the waves were way too large to try and tackle. near Auroville the beach was quite nice except for the fact that there were indians constantly coming over to socialize ("talk to me, i'm indian!") and it was SO HOT!!! we couldn't stay there long...we were all going to melt.
we left, saw some treehouses, and then went to get some food at a tibetan restaurant. we all realized that we had never tried tibetan food and didn't really even know what it was....so we found a little restaurant and checked it out. Tibetans eat something called a "momo" which is basically like a dumpling...we first had a soup, then a bunch of momo's and then a stir-fry dish. it was actually really really good, i have to say.

and that was basically it, our adventure in the french-indian area of Puducherry....that night Nia, Renee and I caught a bus and headed back to bangalore where we arrived at 4 in the morning on sunday. i just slept all day and it felt so good. =)

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