Kailash Beach Resort Pondicherry

... close to the waters edge, as we got closer though we saw that he wasn’t sat down but squatting doing his ‘business’ and then he got up and walked away leaving the sea to take care of it!! Unfortunately for us the sea hadn’t taken care of it by the time we walked past it and I wanted to throw up! We quickly left that beach not in the best frame of mind and got on a hot and crowded bus back to the centre of Puducherry ...

This morning I went to Auroville, a community between here and Pondy. It's a fairly new progressive community like a diamond in the rough. It's pretty hard to explain but one of the articles I read about it referred to it as "a place where relations between human beings, usually based almost exclusively upon competition and strife; would be replaced by relations of emulation for doing better, for collaborating, relations of real brotherhood ...

... everyone in and start their initial exams. There were people everywhere. People suffering, screaming, and in pain all around us. None of the doctors were wearing gloves, only masks, and everyone was in their sandals if not barefoot. I felt like the hospital had been abdomen for forty years and reopened with all the same equipment. I saw some things that night that I never could have imagined. It was a real eye opener. There are just ...

I just finished another great weekend here in Pondicherry. Friday night we invited a few friends from class over to the hostel for a little get-together. We had a lot of fun and I think they all did too. Most of them were second year students and that was their first "party" since being at the school. Yesterday we went to Paradise Beach. The beach itself is an island about 10 km outside of the city. We took a small boat to the ...

Today we spent 6 hours digging 6 holes. I was literally up to my neck in dirt. The only tools used were shovels, hoe and pans to carry the dirt out of the hole. Saying that this work is back breaking would not get the point across. However, I am not here for the manual labor, it is simply part of the experience. The true meaningful part of this trip is the people. I am spending time time ...

... here. The hard-core adventure-traveller in me is embarrassed to see my soft inner suburbanized comfort-seeker, smile with a civilized sigh of satisfaction. Ahhhh... reprieve from the relentlessness of Indian life. Thanks France, for installing Western toilets, with toilet paper (although a tap and a little bucket are still available if you prefer). For instilling a culture of cleanliness, and for planting sweet aromatic blossomed trees alongside the roads.

... because I met some really nice other travelers and spent a day expolring some weird cult and hitching a fishing boat home via dolphin spotting! Or possibly it was the good coffee, yummy chicken and fish a longed for beer and panini but Pondicherry definatly gets my vote!

... wanted the community to be centered around a Banyan tree that she felt was very special. She felt the tree gives off a ton of energy and with the help of a distant relative that is an architect, built a huge gold orb with a crystal inside nearby. It's really hard to describe but you definitely feel like you are in a futuristic world inside. There are all kinds of prerequisites that you have to fulfill before you can enter and even the first visit is limited to ...

... The yoga type was a scrawnily fat-free American lady who was trying in vain to order bread and honey without butter for breakfast. The Indian restaurant owner was really worried by this: "Is tasting better with butter madam. Honey on its own is very much non-tasty." The customer REALLY tried to impress upon him that she wanted a healthy option with no fat and was already making a considerable concession in having sugary honey. He was beginning to ...

... which allowed for some liquid cornering, full throttle, knee to the tarmac, sparks flying from the footrests - exaggeration, most definitely, but allow (and join) me on this descriptive rollercoaster as it is the only way I can come close to describing the feelings of intense pleasure as we weaved through the countryside, silking our way like a metallic ribbon through the perfect lush landscape with the same wild abandon as the bugs that exploded so whole ...