Pondicherry


Advertisement
India's flag
Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Pondicherry
February 19th 2009
Published: February 19th 2009
Edit Blog Post

Pondicherry
We arrived early morning to a converted old house. We got the penthouse room which was very basic had a fridge and was very clean it also had a great roof garden with a table and chairs that was just for our use. It was owned by a very charismatic French man. Pondicherry is an old French colony and it is very obvious as the food is very French and the street names are in French also. We decided we would just stay here until we had to leave from Chennai in 5 days time. After traveling solidly for 2 months, moving from place to place staying no longer than 4 days in each place we were both tired. So we ate great food and had pizza and beers on the roof!

We rented a moped and took a day trip to Auroville.

I took this blurb from the website it’s hard to explain, what it is…..

"Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.
Auroville Charter
1.Auroville belongs to nobody in particular.
Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole.
But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2.Auroville will be the place of an unending education,
of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3.Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realizations.
4.Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

Right so that’s what they say. This Guru called Aurobindo and his follower called the mother set this place up in 1968. At the centre of this 10 km town is a structure called the matri mandir a large golden ball. Inside there is a large crystal ball which radiates the sun into the white walled chamber, which is used for meditation. The rest of Auroville radiates from this central point. There are meant to be over 5000 people living here we just couldn’t find any of them other than a few people floating around. I struggled with the concept and since the mother died we were both very unsure about the place. I learne dhow to drive a moped there badly as we drove around and ended up in many bushes with Stu on the back….

We drove back to Pondicherry and spoke to a few locals about Auroville and another ashram that we had visited. We were told that since the mother had died the Ashram was sold to a private investor by her family and that they had both turned into a money making operation. We are both still quite confused about these places and still have many unanswered questions.

We met two lovely girls from the UK Melissa and Rachel we had great fun on the roof eating pizza and drinking beers. Its great as they are going to the Philippines and we are going to meet up with them.

Onw of the lazy days we found a lovely Café with seats outside looking out to sea. After about an hour of relaxing and drinking lates and cappuccinos and thinking we were on the French Riviera, we were suddenly brought right back to reality. I looked up to see an Indian lady begging me for some money I said no so she proceeded to hoosh her skirt up and wee all over herself and the grass….. Lovely just lovely…we were not in France we were still in India and ready to leave.

We left Pondicherry at 9 oclock in the morning and 24 hours later via a flight to Dehli we were in Bangkok. We expected this journey to be a nightmare but it was flawless and apart from being sleep deprived we arrived in Bangkok excited about the next chapter of our travels…..
Pam and Stu


Advertisement



Tot: 0.104s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 68; dbt: 0.0648s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb