Coloniale Heritage Guesthouse Pondicherry

... we wearing winter hats. There have been quite a few vendors walking the streets selling hats lately too. I’m not sure if I missed the memo but you would think a blizzard was on its way.

I'm definitely going to miss everything about Pondicherry. The first few days I remember feeling like this was such a huge, unfamiliar, chaotic place and now it feels like home. I've made memories here that ...

... world. It was great. I keep thinking the what-ifs, if I decided to stay an extra semester (without taking classes). I don’t think I could let myself actually go through with it although I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Maybe after I graduate?

As for school exams are about a month away. It’s all going too fast. This weekend all of the Americans are going to Bangalore and Mysore for a few days. The trip was ...

... up pretty early Sunday morning and ran with Lindsay. She’s from Grand Valley and used to run at Aquinas before she transferred. About a mile or so away from campus we ran by the "Central Prison" which we found out basically shares a wall with our campus. It makes a little more sense now why we have so many guards around campus. I’ve been running quite a bit since I’ve been here. I registered for the Disney Marathon in ...

... reencarno un parell de vegades).

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French people can be proud of the outcome of their colonialist experiment in Pondicherry. If I was not mesmerized with the dubious colonial cities I visited in South-East Asia, I have to recognize that in this small city, French were able to create a rather appealing colony, in line with what I saw In New Orleans. The fact that I like it so much is not only due to the fact that one can walk along ...

... of us took the bus to the beach and relaxed for a while. I was a bit skeptical about being able to swim because I read a few reviews that said the beaches in this area weren’t suitable for swimming because of strong underwater currents (not to mention what type of pollutants could be in the water). Turns out that the beach was really busy and people were actually swimming! There were ...

... the Tsunami. Very beautiful people that deserve so much more and I hope that we can bring a small amount joy to them. Tomorrow will be the first day of work, so we will see how it goes. There will be 6 hours of work each day and time spent getting to know the villagers, including play time with the children. We are lucky to have translators on site to help with the communication. Hope to include pics tomorrow.

... not only did i find some more random rabbit trash cans and a couple of cool door knockers to satisfy my door knocker fetish but i met two young sisters and their mother who were all playing hopscotch on the road and begging. I stopped to chat with them and their mother and they gave me a demonstation of the game they were playing and invited me to join them. I made a little movie of them and photographed their beautiful smiles. I also stopped to watch a gang of women ...

... on a Tuesday wears his Sunday best
How absurd
How very queer
He sips champagne
and never buys beer!

It is free to stay in Sadhana Forest and you just pay 150rupees per day for delicious, all you can eat vegan food three times a day. It's a deal.

Sadhana Forest Contact details:

Yorit and Aviram Rozin
Sadhana Forest
Auroville 605101 India

Email: sadhanaforest@auroville.org.in
Tel: 0091 413 267 7682/3
or just rock up.

... always a little warm but down below where the mud is, it's super cold. This is great on hot days (which is pretty much every day which is why we get up so early to do work shifts) and most volunteers take a dip after lunch. The entire "pool" is muddy and people like to cover their bodies with the mud because "it's good for the skin." Some people even take a dip at night during the campfire since they are usually right next to each other. One day a bunch of went ...

... could compare the success of their meditations - lightness of the body, height of levitation perhaps?) Anyway, back to Auroville, here goes: Next door to Pondicherry, Auroville is an international community which eschews all religions and encourages unity of all peoples and races. There are 2 spiritual leaders - Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. The former was a freedom fighter against the ...