Hotel Mass Pondicherry

... location right near the bazaar. We decided to head out and look for some food but we got distracted by a 'Bar&#8217; sign and headed in there instead!<br><br>The streets around the market are crammed with people during the day and we had to fight our way through the crowd on some occasions. As the next few places we are going to will be in the north which isn&#8217;t as touristy and the main focus are the religious sights, I needed to find ...

This one is long overdue. I had an exam today so I wanted to focus on that before I sat down to blog again. A lot has happened since I last wrote. This past weekend was pretty eventful. I started having pain in my lower abdomen and wasn't feeling well. Two of the Asian students that live here in the hostel along with another American drove me to the local private hospital. The nurse admitted me and told me the doctor was on his way ...

... more than a month so it all worked oot very well.<br><br>I went to the ashram a few nights to take part in the collective meditation which i have never done before amidst a group. It was lovely. I sat and watched as all the peeps came into the courtyard for the collective meditation (from the chaotic streets only a few blocks away),<br>feelng the calmness.... then all the lights went oot except for a candle, they ran a bell, and we sat. I have never been in that ...

... by cows has some type of horn system. Sensory overload!<br><br>Once we arrived at the temple and got out into the 104 degree day, we were immediately greeted by a woman holding a child rubbing her belly and putting her hand up to her mouth. So we are rushed up to the temple and asked for our shoes. 15 people take their shoes off and get herded to a temple. The temple was evidently closing soon ...

... I fell asleep again. I guess I&#8217;m sleeping so much because of the heat. <br><br>After two hours we arrived in Mahaballipuram. We looked for a hotel which was not an easy task. We finally found a rustic one on the beach and took two rooms for the night. No A/C, but we&#8217;ll survive the night. We decided to visit a little before having dinner. <br><br>Mahaballipuram is a port built in the 7th century and it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The first thing we visited ...

... seashell sculptures (say that five times quickly) and there was a giant Gandhi statue that was a popular site for school groups. I spotted some Matador vans that look similar to volkswagen kombis that were parked outside the hospital and being used as ambulances. I went back to the package wrapper tailor guy who still hadn't done the job so i wandered around the temple some more. I spotted a strange thing happening out the front whereby a priest was carrying around a brass ...

... to go to the party out of pure curiosity but it was just too far a drive that late at night. Instead I went for a very long walk with a friend under the moonlit night. Courses- Aurovillians offer all kinds of courses for people to take (those not a part of the community pay); yoga, meditation, non-violent communication, tai chi, reiki, etc. I had thought I would have all kinds of down time during my afternoons at Sadhana Forest but each day slipped away ...

... or James Bond villain's lair. Here the devotees can meditate and have their spritual gatherings. We tourists were not permitted inside which made it all the more intriguing. Inside there is a special mechanism that reflects a beam of sunlight from the top of the dome onto a giant crystal in the middle. The dome roof is mechanised so that the beam of light is captured at all parts of the ...

... that hiring one for a day in Pondicherry would go some way towards allaying Anna's fears; which it did - by the time we arrived, she was as keen as a jar of colemans and was busy planning her biker chick ensemble - basically gigantic sunglasses and a billowing scarf, which along with her long flowing blond locks, took her storming into the lead of the pillion of the day award (sorry AR, but bikes and blonds, it's...well it's kinda traditional). Most of the day ...