1) Where, at least in my experience, most Australians go into the bush to get in touch with nature and to enjoy some peace and tranquility, it seemed like this was the last thing that the majority of the Indian group was interested in. They were whooping & hollering pretty much all the way through. I'd go as far as to say that they were, as a group, completely incapable of silence for more than 30 seconds; even when we were instructed to be quiet because an elephant may have been nearby. In fact, sometimes I feel like Indian people are genuinely terrified of just being with themselves and in their own company. Often when I would tell people that I was traveling by myself I would get the reply, 'oh that must be lonely' or something to that effect, which always really puzzled me because I don't think I felt lonely at any point in the entire trip. My guess is that this is just a function of having a massive, massive population - maybe they're just used to always having other people around. I wonder if it's a phenomenon common to other population-dense countries?

2) I find it really interesting how things become conventional wisdom in different cultures/places and then people become convinced that their way is the right way. For example, Indians all brush their teeth BEFORE breakfast (the people on the trek seemed to only brush once per day - as did I - but maybe at home they would also brush before dinner). In my experience, Australians all brush AFTER meals - which I always thought was because we don't want our first few mouthfuls to taste like toothpaste. Hence, anyone brushing before brekky here would probably be viewed as strange and an outsider. In India, the story I heard, and it sounds like the kind of logic you would have gotten in the middle ages, to be honest, is that when we wake in the mornings we have junk on our tongue (NB: I think this part is legit, but not really sure how cleaning your teeth helps) and if you eat breakfast first you're going to be swallowing this junk. One Indian bloke who saw me cleaning my teeth after eating said 'too late'. Funny isn't it? Such a silly little thing and yet we both get so tied up with our way being right.

3) One of my big insights from the trip, as someone pursuing a career in development, is that there is NOTHING intrinsic to developing countries' populations that makes them more attuned to their environments. This is the romantic story that NGOs and other groups on the left often push; usually along the lines of (but not quite as extreme as): 'all the third world's problems are caused by the west and capitalism and if we just left them alone they would be much better off because they KNOW what to do with their own country'. I didn't know what to make of this before going to India, but I now realize that it's completely bogus. And if it's bogus in India, I'm going to go ahead and assume it's bogus in most developing countries. From what I understand the rural population is usually more progressive than the urban population because they have a much closer connection with the environment, but I'm sure that people in rural areas could also benefit from some outside knowledge (as we could surely benefit from some of theirs).

I was continually floored by the treatment of the environment in India and it's beyond a doubt that the country is going to have major, major environmental problems in years to come (perhaps the biggest being the availability of water), but I thought that at least the people on the trek would have it right. After all, they've basically self-selected as people who at least have some interest in nature. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. At every camp site there would be plastic littered about; the sum of both my group's and equally unconcerned predecessors. And of course, there was the attitude towards disposing plastic that is ubiquitous throughout India; apparently crossing the lines of class and caste: throw it in the fire! And of course I was the crazy one when I got pissed off about this idea...because we always think OUR ways are right. At least I have some science to back up my opinion though (or at least I think I do...)

The litter was the biggest issue, but the apathy towards nature was displayed in a host of other ways. One of the trek leaders, who was even a botanist, would walk off the path to show the group a plant and would then be followed by 100+ pushy and impatient Indians trampling anything in their path. The botanist didn't seem to care either. I really got the sense that nature had very little intrinsic value; it was their to be dominated & exploited. Of course, the trek was almost exclusively the domain of reasonably well-to-do Indians, so perhaps this is an attitude that isn't shared by the lower classes, but you would think that the extra education the wealthier people have received would compensate for this, wouldn't you? I think the problem would be even worse amongst the less educated. My guess is that when you don't have the benefit of an education you struggle to make the connection between 'I'm throwing a little bit of rubbish on the ground' or 'I'm wasting a bit of water' and 'major environmental problems in the future'. In terms of the environment, perhaps what an education provides is the realization: 'wait a minute...what if everyone else is doing what I'm doing...?'.

This reminds me: I think I mentioned in my Auroville post that one night a big group of us watched a documentary on water. Well in this doco there was this amazing quote from an American Indian that I told myself I would have to track down. Writing about the above has just jogged my memory and I've found the quote:

"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.
The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man --- all belong to the same family.
So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children.
So, we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father's grave, and his children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect's wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand."

Unfortunately, and I realize now that I've actually come across this before, in what constitutes a pervasive myth defended stridently by environmentalists, these aren't actually the words spoken by American Indian 'Chief Seattle' in 1854, but the words of an American screen-writer (though perhaps inspired by some of the Chief's writings) in 1971. Nonetheless! The point is that they neatly (and with stunning eloquence) summarize my feels about your average Indian - turning the "white man's" disposition on its head a little bit!

So you can Imagine how I felt when on the last morning of the trek one of the leaders greeted the group by yelling 'Good Morning Nature Lovers!'. I was sitting their spitting through my teeth the phrase that Aravind Adiga lends to his protagonist in 'The White Tiger': What a f***king joke. But none of this should be taken as a tirade against Indians. It was just a massive wake-up call for me that the cry of NGOs and the like that the people of developing countries are inherently better at managing their environments than us Westerners is categorically wrong. In the end it all comes down to education, and of course that's something that is always going to be more sparse in poor countries than in rich ones.

Back to the 24th though (reader's note: I wrote the above few lines on the 2nd of Feb - the day after I returned. The rest of this post is being written on the 10th...been busy & it's hard to be motivated to write).

Given that my memories are fading (though not as much as I would have expected) and I'm not super-motivated, the plan is to do the last week of the trip in highlights mode. So on the 24th, after brekky & warming up a little, I wandered round town a bit and waited for it to hit 9ish so that the internet cafes would open up. Found a dirt-cheap internet cafe - only 15 rupees per hour, the cheapest I found in India, which confirmed for me that Tirupati was definitely a cheap place to stay. People say AP (Andhra Pradesh) doesn't get many foreign tourists so maybe the whole state is a bit cheaper, I don't know. Spent a while on the net doing the usual, but the main reason for going was to try to get directions to the Youth Hostel where the trek would commence from the following day. The flyer for the trek didn't have the address of the Hostel on it, let alone directions, which I should have taken as a sign of the administrative quality of the whole venture. Managed to find some obscure references to the hostel through google though and so I set off, not with an address, but with something close.

Always good business sense to make your place as hard as possible for people to find : ) Luckily I had arrived early in the day and had plenty of time to stuff around. More lucky was that I was the beneficiary of some exceptional directions from a man I asked at a fruit stall (buying bananas, of course). I eventually got to the hostel, dumped my gear, took a shower & washed my clothes. Then enjoyed a 22 rupee lunch at the hostel (I could have argued the point because the trek itinerary commenced on the 24th and it did say food provided...but for 22 rupee (50c) meals it wasn't really worth making a fuss). Then, knowing that the shocking overnighter would guarantee me a cold if I didn't catch up on some sleep, I hit the hay for a few hours. Woke up around 6ish I think but dinner wasn't until '8:00' (it was eventually served around 9:00) so walked back into town to check things out. Notable points were:
1) Bought a lunch-box for the trek and, preparing myself for a challenge, stocked up on sultanas, cashews, almonds, and seedless dates to get me through any tough days. Turns out I bought way too much and at a fairly hefty expense too - cashews and almonds, relative to other goods, cost about as much as they do in Australia. 
2) Visiting a dvd store to pick up some dvds for a friend in Aus. She had reminded me to make sure that they had sub-titles and I confirmed this with the guy in the shop literally half-a-dozen times. Tried them out when I got back to Aus: none of them have subtitles.
3) Got to try this bakery treat that I had spotted once or twice in other places on my travels, but I think it may actually be an Andhra specialty. I would describe it as something like a sweet calzone. Inside the pastry is a mixture of coconut & glace cherries and probably some other stuff I guess. I only had a little bit (again, dirt cheap), but committed to having another go at it before I left Tirupati.

Trek Day 1:
Of course, this was actually Day 2 by the program that had been put out. In the morning we had an 'introduction' ceremony. Key points were:
1) Being told that, because of elephant and tiger movements, the course for the trek had been changed. We would now catch a bus to where we had originally meant to finish and then start from there. Someone later informed me that this meant we were missing the most trek-like part of the trek.
2) Gave me a feel for just how many people were participating. 120 people, in fact. Not much chance of finding solitude in a group of 120, is there (plus the 20 or so staff members accompanying us).
3) The local media wanted to talk to the only foreigner in the crowd i.e. me. I'll never know if I actually made it on the news or not, unfortunately. I'm still surprised that a cruisy 4 day walk was of interest to the local media...
4) The first of many times where I 'had to be somewhere' so that I could listen to long speeches in a language I don't understand. I feel asleep during one of them and wondered if I got caught on film.

Fast forward: we caught the bus somewhere, then walked for a little while. Then we got to do what was, in terms of the trekking, probably the highlight of the 4 days, I think. It was this long descent through the rainforest. Big trees & roots, rocks and boulders. Eventually we got to the camp-site, which was next to a waterfall and above a small waterhole. We slept on rock, but it was relatively flat, so not too bad. I was cold though - oh and by this stage I also realized that I hadn't managed to escape contracting the cold either.

The next day we headed back up the section we had descended the day before, but it didn't take nearly as long as coming down had and wasn't particularly challenging (even with a cold I didn't break a sweat). This day involved a little more walking but even so we were at the camp-site by lunch-time. The good part was that I managed to get away from the pack a little bit, which made things far more enjoyable because a) there was a little bit of silence, and b) I could go at my own pace, which was faster than most other people's. After we reached the campsite I quickly ducked away into the bushes; my stomach wasn't right. Little did I know that this would be my state pretty much continuously for the next 2 weeks... I think the tummy issues were caused, at least initially, by eating too much sugar. The food they were serving us on the trek, while fantastic, was always accompanied by a 'sweet', which was sometimes insanely sweet, and between this & my dates and sultanas, plus this other supposedly savoury snack I had bought that also had sugar in it, I think my body just couldn't handle it. Stupidly though, I kept munching on the dates and sultanas, and kept finishing the sweets they served me at meals. 

On the sleeping front they upped the anty the second night; instead of flat rock we now slept on a BED of rocks. That's right. After you shifted the ones that were really digging into you it wasn't so bad - until you moved at some point during the night. On the plus side though I was sleeping really close to this other bloke and so I managed to stay warm this time.

Needed another toilet stop in the morning but the place I had gone the first time was in the direction of the area that had now been designated the women's toilets, so I had to go in another direction towards the men's toilets. I was assured I was going the right way by the piles of poo along the rocks. I was thinking to myself 'don't these idiots know anything about going in the bush?' But it got better, 2 hours or so later (we were always very slow to get going in the morning), after we had had breakfast and packed our lunch, we started heading off walking - in the direction of the men's toilets. Well done trek organizers. Place the toilets along the walking path. Genius. I was freaking out thinking 'Christ we're going to have to dodge a dozen bloody piles of poo...how embarassing for the women' but no one really seemed to bothered by it. I think it probably takes a lot to gross out an Indian woman.

Day 3 and I was starting to look forward to what would be the final night. Just lots of little frustrations that I won't go into here, plus it's so, so hard to be in a good mood when you're sick (both with a cold and an unsettled belly). Like the previous 2 days we got to walk through some really nice areas. I remember thinking to myself that the nature managed to outweigh, though not by much, the frustration associated with being with the group. I was wondering if for the third night they might set us up to sleep on a bed of nails as our final challenge, but alas it was just another slab of rock (actually some people opted to sleep on the adjacent rock-bed instead of the flat-rock...go figure). I think it was in the evening on the 3rd day that we were 'valedicted'. Again, how freaking unnecessary for a 4 day stroll...

The 4th day began by striding off past piles of male faeces again. We walked through the guts of the day, probably 10-1 or something like that, and it got pretty hot. At one point there was a lot of carry-on about an elephant being nearby, but we never saw anything. One of the highlights for me was arriving at our final destination, where the buses were awaiting us, and finding out the meaning of the place's name. I asked one of the blokes I was with about the second half of the name and he explained it meant 'excrement' (a common theme in this post, I know). He then proceeded to explain that the first half of the name meant 'dog', so this was the place where dogs shit. I thought to myself, 'gee, you would have to be proud to be born and to have lived your life in the place where dogs shit'. And it didn't even seem like a bad place to me...

(download)

Click here to download:

Trekking_-_Indian_style.zip (4.66 MB)

It's been a good 10 days since I've posted and I don't trust my memory to retain too much after that length of time, so I'm going to try to get down a skeleton of my time in Auroville in the 25mins before the internet cafe closes and then I can hopefully flesh it out some other time.

So on the 12th I was writing about how a bit of risk-taking might be what you need to create great travel experiences, and in the process of writing that I was slowly convincing myself to take another risk. My eternal battle with rickshaw drivers had come to a pass. There are no buses from Pondi (Pondicherry) to Auroville. The auto was going to cost Rs 150. But there was another option...so at about 7pm I found my way to a cycle-renting shop, got a bike, wedged my pack on the back rack, and started to ride to Auroville (in the dark). I wobbled about 5m and knocked over someone's motorcycle - which fell into a car (1/2 my fault, 1/2 the fault of the guy who came to grab the motorbike and then let it drop), but from then on it was pretty smooth sailing.

Was a risk, but it made for a great night.

Day 2 (Wed) , which was more like Day 1 in Auroville. I made my way to the guest info centre to try to sort out a place to stay. Found out about Solitude and also spent some time checking out the program of activities etc for the week I would be spending. That night I went to a cooking glass, which wasn't something I thought I was going to do in India but not an opportunity I was going to pass up. It was great, but they haven't emailed me the recipes yet (PS they eventually did)... then I went to the Auroville gym - but it was a bit of a dud session because they decided to close about 1/2hr before closing time and I got there pretty late. Then rode back to Solitude in nearly complete darkness and slowly walked to where I thought my little hut was (shown earlier to me when I'd popped by), and went to sleep in a great mood.

Day 3 (Thur): First day of work on the farm. Couldn't believe it, but we were actually doing the stereotypical back-breaking farm labour you associate with third-world countries and see in docos, posters etc (see photos). Was hard but not unbearable - though the midday sun brought things to a stop. I was chuffed to find I could get through it, as I would have had my doubts beforehand. Great breakfast and lunch - at this stage there was a japanese woman there who was also a cook, so we were having delicious food. I worked in the afternoon too because I had heard the next day was going to be a holiday and then I went to what I thought was a yoga-type class but was actually a dance class. It was a lot of fun, and had me sweating like crazy (partially because I'd worn a long-sleeve t-shirt thinking I was going to a yoga class), but was also Rs 250, which is pretty steep. But by this point I was just living in the moment and had realized that I'd have to just cop a week of Auroville prices. I think it was this night that I went to a concert with some brazilian guys strumming on their guitars and singing a bit too. It was nice and relaxing after a long day in the sun.

Day 4 (Fri): Holiday : ) Not just any holiday, Pongal! Pongal is, I was told, one of the major festivals in Tamil Nadu (the state in which Auroville lies) and is all to do with agriculture, from what I understood. I think one day is about the harvest, one day is about the animals, etc. Pongal is also a common (usually breakfast) dish throughout South India - especially so in TN. Can't remember what we did during the day... I got into the gym at some point but think I struggled a little bit because I was a little tired from the day's work before. but that night I got to take part in another one of the activities I had earmarked - lucky because it was miles away and I wouldn't have been able to get there myself but some of the guys from Solitude were going so I jumped on there scooter. The evening was a documentary on water followed by a delicious vegan dinner.

At this stage a little info on the people I was spending time with at Solitude. Not the best crew in the world, but a few noteworthy individuals. One of the most popular people was a Swedish girl named Tuve (pronounced Too-vuh), who was just a really nice person. There was also an english girl, Lucy, I had some nice chats with. They were my 2 favourites by a long shot.

Day 5 (Sat): Working again. I struggled a bit because I had over-indulged at the free dinner the night before (a bad habit of mine that I've decided to kick once and for all) and had given myself an upset tummy. Dinner was sushi night at Solitude. Was great.

Day 6 (Sun): Holiday! This is getting a little more recent so my memory is a bit sharper. We had brekky, then cycled to another guest house for a great lunch, then cycled to a beach where we spent a few hours. I then got some dinner and went to a german film that I think was probably the basis for the American movie 'City of Angels' with Nick Cage and Meg Ryan. I can't really remember the American version, but I'm going to go ahead and guess the Germans did it better.

Day 7 (Mon): Freakin' hard work in the fields, mainly with my man Ramesh (one of the Indian workers, but the only man, and the one on whom all the hard physical labor fell). No photos this time unfortunately, but was basically just being hunched over and digging tracks with a little shovel, so that the field could then be used for planting seeds. Destroyed my thumbs and produced big blisters, but they've actually healed pretty well already (PS even better now)... Finally made it to the solar kitchen for dinner, which had been hard to get to due to weekend/holiday opening hours, and ate the house down! Then to another film..but unfortunately this one was terrible. I'm told it was a 'Tollywood' film i.e. a Bollywood film made in Tamil Nadu (even though I was under the impression the dialogue was in Hindi...), but of course, I had no real alternative, other than going to bed, so I stuck it out.

Day 8 (Tues): I had my session in the Matrimandir at 9:45am, which wasn't very special to be honest, so did a little work in the morning and then worked in the arvo as well because I felt like I had some catch up to do. Also made it to my first yoga class in India! Was quite different to what I'm used to but very nice & was stoked to have had the experience. At night I went to the solar kitchen again, which was great, and then hung out with Tuve and a cool American friend of hers, Michael. We went to the last activity on my list, one that had actually kept me in Auroville when I'd been thinking about maybe leaving on the 19th instead of the 20th. And it was worth it. The event was a really great cultural festival, the likes of which I have seen very little of in India. And then free sweet pongal afterwards!

Day 9 (Wed): A great day. Worked in the morning and we finished the job we were doing right on lunch-time, which was rewarding. A good lunch and then I set off to take care of my unfinished business in Auroville - bakeries. Sought out one bakery and was heartily disappointed - but next door was a little store where I purchased some spicy peanut butter (PB with some garlic, himalayan salt and chilli), which was a big hit over the subsequent days. The other bakery was fantastic though. Then closed my account - just in time (lucky because I had to get back my Rs 1000 deposit!) and hit the gym. Was a great sess & followed it up with a snack of fresh bread & chilli PB!! Then rode back to Pondi, which was a piece of cake, eventually found the bike rental place, had a meal at a little joint nearby where I had gone before departing for Auroville by bike a week or so before-hand. Got a cheap-ride in a tenpo (somewhere between a rickshaw and a bus; closer to the former in terms of space but to the latter in terms of the fare) to the bus-stop, waited for a bit and then jumped on a bus to Bangalore - the first half of getting to my next desination, Hampi. Other than some frustration at the bus-stop it was another of those 'clockwork' days that make you feel fantastic.

And after a week in Auroville, which everyone I spoke to agreed 'isn't really India', I felt refreshed and ready to get back into the thick of it!

PS Uploading the photos & videos in my room gives me one more thing to be proud of - the speed of the internet connection I enjoy here (in college)!

(download)

Click here to download:

My_Auroville_Experience_-_with.zip (4.69 MB)

(download)

Click here to download:

P1010900.MOV (7.44 MB)

(download)

Click here to download:

P1010902.MOV (4.71 MB)

Auroville was established in 1968 by a character called 'The Mother'. It was at this stage of my learning about the place, very early on, that I started having serious doubts about whether I wanted to go there. That title gives a very cult-like impression, doesn't it? The mother was a french woman who moved to India and paired up with a spiritual guru called Sri Aurobindo. There is an ashram dedicated to Sri Aurobindo in the nearby (and bigger) town called Pondicherry, which is a former french settlement.

Auroville was born out of The Mother's vision for a community for human unity and historically its spirituality was based on the teachings of both the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. It was created as an international experiment and received funding from UNESCO. Here's a bit of the official prose from the website:

"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 a 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 realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

Away from the vision of Auroville, though, the reality of the place (from my short experience there) is quite different. It is still a small community, with only around 2000 Auroville-ians, the term used for those people who have lived there long-term or were born there. The rest of the people there at any one time are either visitors, who usually swing by for a 1/2 day to have a quick look, or guests, who have a status somewhere between visitors and Auroville-ians.

Because Auroville is a very idealistic place, they are quite exclusive when it comes to giving outsiders access to their community. I think that, while I felt this was somewhat counter to the egalitarian principles the community would seem to embrace, it is a very necessary evil. And even as things currently stand, and I'll explain how they stand in a moment, I was told a few times that many Auroville-ians oppose the access outsiders are granted and are quite hostile towards non-Auroville-ians.

Visitors don't require much explanation. Where things get trickier is when people want to stay in Auroville. Although I had been told that there was a 1 week minimum stay, in turns out that this isn't the case - perhaps some of the more enterprising guest-houses have lowered their standards. The basic idea though, as I see it, is to restrict access to those people who are sufficiently interested in the ethic and vision of Auroville to be willing to spend 1 week of their time there. Even though you can now stay in some guesthouses for a night or two, you're only a genuine guest - with access to the privileges guests receive - if you have a guest account, and to get one of these you do have to stay for at least 1 week. So surprise surprise, I stayed for the bare minimum of 1 week.

As a guest you have a finacial account which can be used for getting goods and services around Auroville as only a small number of places accept cash. Again, this is to keep the outsiders restricted to certain areas. In practice it's pretty darn easy to get by with cash - last resort is just giving the cash to some willing person with an account - and I find the desire to avoid cash transactions pretty unproductive myself, but I do like the way in makes some places the exclusive domain of guests and Auroville-ians. One such place is the community dining hall, called 'The Solar Kitchen', as it uses solar energy to do all the cooking. Pretty fantastic! Feeds over 1,000 people per day using only solar energy, and because the food is only for guests and Auroville-ians, it's much more affordable than the food you can get elsewhere in Auroville.

January is peak-season for Auroville and so when I arrived there was severely limited guest house availability. Things fell into place very nicely though. I had thought, before arriving, that I would like to do spend some time in some of the community's farming areas; 1) because I love my organic fruit & veg in Brisbane and I'd like to learn more about it, and 2) because it is in the spirit of Auroville that everyone should make a contribution to the community by volunteering their time. And I really wanted to get a feel for what living in a 'sustainable community' was like. One of the guesthouses that had availability was on a farm. The reason it had availability was that they asked for 6hrs of work per day. At first I baulked at this - wouldn't that severely curb my ability to take place in other activities? I checked out the farm though and liked the look of it so I committed. Conveniently the farm also had a minimum stay of 1 week, whereas some other farms had 2 week or 1 month minimums. At this point I should explain something else; all the areas in Auroville, villages really, have names that are a little different to what you would normally see in a community. There is 'New Creation', which is where the gym, pool, tennis courts, basketball courts, etc are, 'Certitude', 'Aurogreen', 'Hope', and all sorts of others along similar lines. The place I was staying was called Solitude : ) This led to some pretty funny monologue exchanges early on as I was thinking about asking directions 'Excuse me I'm trying to find Solitude', and at one point, struggling a little to find the exact location of the place, I caught myself saying 'Where the f is solitude?' hah.

Ok almost finished. I mentioned activities and Auroville has a great program available. Lots of yoga classes, plus other more 'modern' offerings like fusions of dance, or special water therapy techniques etc. Plus movie nights, workshops, seminars etc etc. Certainly enough to keep you very content in the community without having to get out to Pondi regularly for some stimulation.

One last thing: I mentioned that there are visitors to Auroville but didn't really explain why they come. The main reason, almost the only reason, is to see what is the community's central piece of architecture: a building called 'Matrimandir'. It can only be seen by visitor's from the outside but guests can see inside if they follow a given process. The place is primarily a meditation hall, established by the mother for people to go and 'concentrate'. It's a pretty amazing place, architecturally, but you'd want it to be; it took 37 years to build and the gardens and other features of the overall design are still a long way from completion.  
 

(download)

Click here to download:

The_low_down_on_Auroville.zip (1.27 MB)

Having fallen behind on the blog I decided not to post anything until I was upto date, which I don't think was a good decision in hindsight. Some of the posts have been written and are sitting in my draft emails folder, so the task ahead of me, namely blogging on 2.5 weeks of travel, isn't as onerous as it sounds. The main thing that held me up was that, when I was writing about Auroville, I realized that a lot of what I was saying would be lost on the potential reader unless I gave some background on the place first and at that time I didn't have the time/energy to do so. So first things first, some background on Auroville : )