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Published: February 1st 2008
The following Blog is actually two-in-one (sorry for the length), T will be writing about Pondicherry and Christine will write about Varkala. We have a bit of a new stategy for India: when we find a place we like we extend our stay and explore the area. When we arrive somwhere that doesn't look feel or smell in the flow, we get out pretty quick thus reducing wear and tear on your dear bloggers.
We arrived in Pondicherry on New Year's Day. Starting out in an over-priced, western style hotel with one particularly pleasing attribute: a rooftop swimming pool (a rarity). We headed up to swim with our trunks and towels and found that the pool was empty! "Tomorrow." said the hotel manager, this is India after all.
The next day we found a great place overlooking the Bay of Bengal. The Guest House as they are called here is owned by the Aurobindo Ashram and we paid a whopping $15 a night. We planned to stay In "Pondi" for four days but extended to seven.
The town is shaped in a longish oval with one of its long borders being the stretch of seafront called
"The Promenade". The charm of the Promenade is that it's a couple of miles of beach and sidewalk unobstructed by construction. Because we arrived on New Year's Day, the promenade was closed to traffic and bursting with people, mostly Indian but a fair sprinkling of fair folks as well. There was a strong wind that gave the place a coolish atmoshphere and roiled the sea in an exciting way. We immediately rented a scooter and began buzzing around.
Having been one month in India, we were ready for some of the more sophisticated restaurants, finer shopping and God be praised, wine cheese and bread. Catering to tourists, Pondi is amenable to taking a bigger chunk out of the travel budget with fine jewelry, antiques and cafe's. We had seafood, lamb, salads, fresh fruit lassi's (a fearful proposition is some towns) and a couple bottles of Grover Vineyards red wine. As far as I can tell they are the only vintner in India and they actually make a fair blend of cabernet and syrah at about $10 U.S. Good luck finding this wine in any but the most prosperous areas.
We stayed in the French quarter which is where
Heavenly plumeria
This one is for Katla!just about anything of interest is located in this city. The quarter is a mix of charming but aged "colonial heritage" structures, fortlike on the outside with garden patios and balconys within, and similar remodels and rebuilds that have been turned into upscale hotels and so forth. Some of the locals here speak French which is a peculiar sound coming from very Indian looking folks.
The rest of the city is like a mid-sized Indian town not overly polluted other than the obscene canal that runs parallel to the seafront about half a mile inland. The main points of interest are The Aurobindo Ashram and some of its holdings and a rather sad botanical garden that featured some lovely old trees.
The Ashram is a lovely place. High, white walls surround a brick courtyard and garden. At the center of the garden is the Samadhi (tombs) of Sri Aurobindo and his cohort, The Mother. Plenty of info on the web about these two, but briefly, they are some of the first to promote an "integral spirituality" that advocates a very practical worldly life combined with a deep connection to God. India is famous for renunciation, so this is
a bit of a departure. They were also adamant that a true spirituality must be free of the shackles of religious dogma, a huge departure for India.
The Samadhi which serves as a focal point for the meditators at the Ashram is shaded by an extraordinarily lovely tree with dozens of limbs snaking over the courtyard. The site has a feeling of deep peace and stillness despite the fact the the attendants seem far more interested in being shoe police than encouraging interest and inquiry in the ashram. We both left with the feeling that this was one of the few places we had found in India that indeed has a soothing effect on one's soul.We had a couple of notable experiences in Pondi as well, but for the sake of brevity we'll save that for the oral descriptions.
When I think back on our stay, one of the most notable features was the simple joy of riding the scooter along the Promenade in the evenings and feeling the cool air wash the day's heat off our bodies.
Driving on the abandoned Promenade was a breeze, but there was some truly hairy traffic that we experienced during
some of our journeys. {p.s. when we were in Varkala, Christine spent some time helping a German woman who had just lost her husband in a scooter accident. He entangled his handlebars with a trailer. The locals had been talking that very day about how fast and aggressively he had been driving.}
Traffic in India is a weird mix of chaos and flow. the rules of the road are: make way for the biggest vehicles or die! driving so near to a rickshaw or motorbike as to almost be touching is not an uncommon experience. My biggest concern was Christine's legs which were outside of mine, I didn't dare let some stray piece of metal scrape her. I found that the moment I stopped to think about what to do, I would be completely overwhelmed by the madness and impossibility of the traffic. When I relaxed gave it some gas and stopped thinking, we would fall right into the "flow". The flow being all directions, all angles, stop, go, honk, pothole, exhaust fumes. . . Our first three miles out to Auroville were like this.
Our final two days in the area were dedicated to checking out Auroville.
Aurobindo . . .Auroville. This place about 12 miles outside Pondicherry is a kind of Utopia that was envisioned by The Mother (who incidentally outlived Aurobindo by thirty years or so and passed in the early seventies.) Founded in the late '60's, the huge parcel of land started as a treeless wasteland. Over the years people moved in, planted thousands of trees and began construction on a series of buildings that are in the shape of a spiral galaxy. The drive in on the scooter wound through a lovely green forest that is said to have created temps in Auroville around 10 degrees lower than Pondi. While there is still a ton of work to do after forty years, the place is quite impressive. (google auroville for more)
The center of Auroville is marked by an old Banyan tree that is one of the few original trees on the land. Near the tree sits the jewel of Auroville and the monument to the Mothers vision, The Matrimandir. The Matrimandir is a giant golden paneled ball (photo) surrounded by gardens and a low, earthen amphitheater. When I first saw photo's I thought the place looked a bit gaudy. Seeing it
in person leaves a more reverential impression. We knew from our Lonely Planet book and travel gossip that we couldn't get inside, but thought to ask anyway. As with much of the Aurobindo scene, we found that we could indeed get in if we could contact the right people. We tracked them down and to our delight, got the same-day tour.
With no preconception of what we would experience, we were completely blown away with the interior of the Mandir. Inside the huge dome pink-golden light emanates from the walls, everything else is white. There are two (white) ramps ascending to the inner chamber near the top of the globe. The chamber is a completely white room (36x36 feet?) with a circle of twelve columns surrounding a giant crystal (made by Zeiss) atop a 3 foot gilded platform, the only color in the room.
When the door is closed leaving a seamless white wall, the only light in the room is the sunlight that is beamed from the apex of the dome directly down into the crystal. This is accomplished with a series of computer-directed mirrors. As we meditated in silence the power and peace began to settle
deep into our bones. I was so physically affected that my usually slouchy posture straightened out (as verified by my yoga director) and my body felt strong and clear. After, I was a bit dizzy and needed to sit against the banyan tree for a while to get grounded. During this time certain patterns of tension and holding in my body released. The hour we spent in the gardens and at the tree afterward was like a blissful Garden of Eden scene. We left the Mandir feeling humble, hopeful deeply rested and peaceful.
And Moving on. . .
After a 3 hour taxi ride to the Chennai airport from Pondi we boarded a plane for Trivandrum located in the state of Kerala. The flight was only an hour but the taxi ride to our final destination, Varkala Beach, ended up being another 2 hours. It was supposed to be only 45 minutes but we got this crazy taxi driver who decided on that he was going to be our personal tour guide. He took us the long and lumpy bumpy way, through tiny village roads not wide enough for two cars. {I
had already negotiated the fare so what gives? -T}
Our escort did show us some interesting things including some of the backwater canals, coconut fiber rope factories (really just boats in which they soak the coconuts and huts in which they pull apart the fibers and then twirl it into rope.) and the local Chai stand where making chai is like a beautiful dance.
After the fist hour, though, we had had enough travel for one day but on he went and the bumps got more jiggly. We were ready to hit the beach when we finally did arrive.
And what a perfect beach. Varkala seems to be the more mature version of Goa. The tourists that frequent this beach are older and mellow and the nights are peaceful and serene.
The weather was perfect for the 11 days we ended up staying there but unfortunately T became ill for about 5 of those days (actually he fell ill a few hours after we both treated ourselves to an Ayurvedic massage, he had 4 nights in a row of fever!) I eventually rounded up a rickshaw, peeled him out of bed and took him to the
Varkala Cliffs and beach
I took this one while in the water. Now you all have taken a dip in the Arabian Sea! nearest hospital. Rustic isn’t the right word, maybe more like stone age would be more apt. But we saw a sweet doc that diagnosed a chest infection, prescribed an assortment of drugs and sent us on our way. The whole thing cost less than 5 bucks.
T reluctantly took his meds and soon was on the mend. Then he joined me on the beach where we swam and tanned for a few days as he recuperated.
One of the outstanding things about Varkala was that every night all the restaurants that line the cliff promenade would display the days catch; butter fish, sail fish, tuna, prawns, calamari, snapper, lobster, a literal feast for the eyes. We wondered what happened to the extra because every restaurant displayed pounds upon pounds of fresh whole fish and there weren’t enough tourists to eat it all. Well, we found out! They don’t throw any away and they don’t catch it every day. Some of it comes out of freezers where it can be stored and brought out again for up to 3 weeks. This means that every night the fish is thawing and getting refrozen. We also found out that a lot
Romantic sunset
We would swim til we dropped! of tourists get sick. Again we lucked out after enjoying two exquisite dinners. It tasted fresh to me! {I checked the eyeballs, gills and smell-T}
I hate to admit it but I took my one and only (so far) yoga class here in Varkala at the same Ayurvedic Center where T had his massage. I was the only student. I tried to take it easy but when you're the only one and the teacher has his eye only on you and he happens to be a stubborn, militant teacher there's no such thing as taking it easy. At one point I just had to tell him no I won't do that, flat out. He saw that I was advanced so he was pushing it. I resolved to do my own yoga in my hotel room!
We devoted one of the 11 days that we spent in Varkala to make a trek up to see our favorite hugging Guru, Mata Amritanandamayi, or Ammachi. We rode the train up and another bumpy ride by autorickshaw to the ashram.
The ashram is impressive. After crossing a giant footbridge over a wide backwater canal you enter the grounds. Two pink
Such a cultured man
Keeping up to date on the primaries from the other side of the world skyscrapers rise up out of the thickness of coconut palms. These are the living quarters.
There are a couple of temples, an eating area and all kinds of buildings that have a bustle of activity going on. It is a bit of a circus but a peaceful one. We ran into a couple of friends there, Andrew and his wife Judea whom T knows from Spiritrock, and Chetana a lovely girl from England that T knew from the spiritual circle of Santa Cruz.
We new that Amma was leaving the next day for a 2 week tour of south India and we thought we could catch her last appearance at the ashram. We got lucky, as no one was certain that she would come out of her quarters. But at 6:30pm she came out and gave a small group of people her darshan of hugs and prasad. We were 3rd in line and got out of there just in time to catch our 7:30 train back to Varkala.
When T felt well again we decided to move on to Alleppy, the famous launching place for the Kerala backwater houseboats. You’ll be hearing about that in the next blog…..
View from all the restaurants lining the cliffs
At night all you could see was the fishing boats lighting up the horizon like little cities. There must have been 100s upon 100s of them-magical! Sending love, Christine
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Kahni
non-member comment
Hospital & meds for $5?
Wow, lying around the beach, gazing out at the turquoise water, enjoying the fragrance of plumeria while you recuperate...even getting sick actually sounds kind of relaxing! Christine, thank you so much for getting T to the hospital! So glad you're feeling better. You are both starting to look a little Indian, a guru and guru-ette. No tilaka and painted red palms yet? Love those sunglasses, T! Christine, you mean you don't want to eat three week old frozen/unfrozen seafood...where's your sense of adventure? Thanks and namaste. This was the best blog ever and worth getting up at 5:30 to read it!