Auroville - a little world on its own...

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Saturday, Nov 28th

Today, I arrived in Auroville. It’s a little commune typa thing about 15km outta Pondy. Getting here was pretty adventurous. Just a little tip at the side: Never rely on Indians, if they’re talking about distances. Not even, if it’s the tourist info or locals or anybody. So I was told, the way from where the bus’d drop me to Auroville would be between ½ Km and 5 km. Well, turned outta be 10 km. But nice people took me on their bikes. J The idea of Auroville is to have people from all over the world living together in peace and hamony. The center is the Matrimandir, a temple, which kinda looks like a crossing between an oversized golden golfball , and a NASA space project. Tons of Indians pilger here to see it from the outside. It’s pretty complicated to get inside, but I got a pass for Monday. Other than that it is very quiet and peaceful here and for now I’m just glad to be out in the nature for two days. The odd thing about this place is that it could be pretty much anywhere on the planet. You totally forget you’re in India. Also it is quiet expensive (accommodation, shops, food etc.) which in my eyes doesn’t really fit in the entire hippie-ish concept…

Yesterday I got to see something very cool. The Ashram that I was writing about earlier has a big celebration next Tuesday. For that they prepared a show where everyone participated that is involved in the Ashram sports: so about 500 people from age 4 to around age 80. It was absolutely amazing and unique and reminded me sort of of big celebrations in socialist countries. At times there where about 300 people on the lawn doing the exact same moves. Unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures.

Gonna enjoy the quiet surroundings now!
Hugs

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