Hotel Sooriya International Pondicherry

... that would cover me up, basically from my shoulders to my knees. It wasn’t as easy to find something in the huge array of shops as I thought it would be until a shopowner asked if I wanted to have something made in a material of my choice, assuming that it was going to be out of my price range I turned him down, until he said it would only be 420 Rs (about 6 GBP), I couldn’t get that tape measure around me fast enough ...

... a while we asked if he would be there shortly and the nurse told us that he was on holiday (vacation) and that I would have to go someone else to be seen. Luckily it wasn’t an emergency because we had a drive a half hour to the other side of Pondy to another hospital. We went to the first hospital because it is privately operated which decreases the crowd and increases the overall care and is said to have better doctors. The ...

... of atmosphere before, amongst all that energy, THAT kind of energy, the calmness, the stillness, the silence...just being. I was just being, nowhere but everywhere, in my own space, my own time..it was a wonderful feeling. After i left i was walking down the street smiling, feeling it, whatever it is..loving it.<br><br>Then i stumbled upon this busy dining hall and wondered what it was, and found oot it too was affiliated with the ashram (as are many things in ...

... we rush...no pictures can be taken inside, but right here they can. Walk faster, go this way, how about over here....Sensory Overload.<br><br>We exit the temple to meet the same beggar with friends...It is sad to see, however in 104 temp I have to say I was not as sympethic as one might think. So, we rushed back to the bus - had lunch and got back on the bus for a 2 hour drive back with no AC ...

... the Five Rathas (Pancha Rathas). It&#8217;s some beautiful granite sculptures and a temple in the middle of them. Madhan told me they are made of one single stone. If that is the case, then it&#8217;s the most incredible thing I have ever seen (little exaggeration, but close enough). Madhan and I took a bunch of pictures and asked people to take pictures of the two of us together. People looked at us in a weird way as it is uncommon to see an Indian guy with a white woman. That ...

... plate containing lemons, candles, rupee notes, flowers, red kumkum powder and a burning wick in a ghee pot. Some people had parked their motorbikes and a bus next to him and he was waving the plate around to bless the vehicles. Next he would chant and put a tikka dot on the front of the vehicles and some garlands of flowers. Next the owner would be asked to start their vehicle and drive over a lemon if you had a bike or a large melon if you had a bus. This ritual of ...

... it was already 2 weeks. I did manage to get certified in Reiki which I've been trying to do for quite some time. I also went to a music shop and had a drum hand made for me! I have been trying to buy a drum for many years now and decided that India would be a great place to get one. Since the shop was all out of drums they had to make one just for me so I asked that they put a lotus flower on the side- it's a really sweet drum. Our last night in Sadhana Forest ...

... seriously. There was some temptation to jump the security ropes and dash inside to see what was going on. But we were too chicken. These are the 4 central tenets of Auroville, in their own words: 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 ...

... spent splashing about in the sea, skimming the hacky sack off the waves with the local village kids, who it seems spend most of their youth frolicking with the fish, before they get old enough to start catching them. Then in the late afternoon we all made the short trip into the French flavoured Pondicherry - basically just an excuse to all roll into town with engines throbbing, before spending the evening sat around a fire on the beach, listening to Radiohead ...