(no subject)
Our month of volunteering now complete, we chose Pondicherry, an old French colony on the east coast, as our first stop on our travels round India, in the hope of finding some fireworks for Bastille day. Unfortunately, while a sense of Frenchness persists in the language, food, tourist population,lazy afternoon business hours, street names and moustaches, the same was not true for national celebrations. But Pondicherry proved to be just what the doctor ordered for a heart broken by the departure from a place and a person I had grown more than accustomed to. The light breeze from the Bay of Bengal does little to ease the intensity of a sun so committed to it's job it'll bounce and bend round corners just to burn you in the shade. So I had myself a wonderfully brooding first 48 hours, sitting, sweating, smoking and mourning the loss of Bangalori.
The heat dictates the pace of life in Pondicherry, but doesn't necessarily restrict it. It's nice to let the sun kick your ass as you ponder very slowly along streets under the spotted shade of blossoming trees that grow thoughtfully diagonally from each pavement to meet in the middle in a fruitless attempt to protect you. But soon you realise no stomach on earth can hold enough water to fuel the steady stream of sweat that runs from your nose. Bicycles provide an effective cooling airflow for the duration of the ride, at the cost of a sweat debt that makes a salted slug of you as soon as you dismount. Which is why Pondicherry can accelerate as well as restrict the pace of life, as mopeds make perfect, if selective, common sense.
I don't like driving cars at home. Turning a steering wheel feels very far removed from my innate instinct and ability to control where I'm going. A slight flick of my wrist to the right would feel completely unconnected to the head on collision it would probably result in. And changing lanes unnerves me, I cannot read other drivers and always feel like I'm risking their rage or fatal inattention. A moped in India wins on both counts. Your balance is inextricably bound to your direction, and the roads being the hypervigilante free for all that they are, if there's a space you beep your horn and you take it.
Armed with bikes both pedal and petrol powered, we were able to take day trips free from incessant bartering with rickshaw drivers. One such day trip benefited from predictably poor planning, when Lizzy's moped ran out of petrol on a long country road, just after we had overtaken the strangest funeral procession I have ever seen or heard of. Her clothed body lay visible on a hand drawn cart the size of a small bus, surrounded by hundreds of Indians. Some pulled the cart, some sang, some banged drums, some pelted long chains of flowers off the ground, leaving a multicoloured pleasant smell all along the road behind them. Others took home made grenades, coconuts empty of milk and full of gunpowder, hung them from trees and cacti on the other side of the road, and lit their fuses. We watched from behind a tractor in an exciting mixture of fear and amazement and jumped as loud bangs sent clouds of dust and spiked projectiles flying. Once the procession had passed a safe distance, we returned to the now perfumed road to tackle the petrol problem. Me and Lizzy would wait with the bikes while Dan and Georgia went off in search of petrol.
We were in the middle of nowhere. They were gone a long long time. The heat beat down. Our bottles dried quickly. Hunger struck and I magically remembered a half eaten packet of dates that had been hiding in a small forgotten pocket of my bag since exam revision. My backpack wasn't exactly the cool dry place they requested to be stored in, but the best before date had the final say. We relished them rather than rationed them. Dried fruits hold little water, and as we continued to sweat our thoughts returned to hydration. What would Bear Grylls do? Short of killing a sacred cow for it's bladder, we engineered a source of water from the remnants of the funeral procession. The coconut grenades were now blown in two, and they had a hole bored at the bottom, presumably for extracting milk and injecting explosives. We stabbed holes in a leaf using cactus spikes, and held it to the bottom of the half coconut, over the hole. By grinding cactus fragments inside the coconut with a large stone, we were able to filter it's fluids through the holes in the leaf and collect spike free cactus juice in our empty water bottles. A mouth watering mixture of sheer genius and sheer desperation.
Another day trip took us to the nearby village of Auroville. Auroville is a self proclaimed 'experiment in international living', where earthlings can live side by side free from commercialism and the constraints and conflicts of their respective countries, in the hope of speeding the evolution of the collective unconscious by basking in the universal truths that connect all cultures. The only requirement is that you renounce all religions, which is pretty ironic given their criticism of religions is how each one is at the exclusion of all others. One of a few reasons why I was so cynical about their utopian scene, the other major one being the slow, heavy, enlightened and philisophical voice the video presentation was narrated in. It was quite impressive though. They have a population of over 2,000 people from all over the world; research and practise more sustainable ways of living; practise and perform arts, also from all over the world; educate children from surrounding villages as well as their own; have a plan for the future completed city to be in the shape of a galaxy, the centre of which is the Matrimandir: a large golden golf ball shaped meditation chamber, at the centre of which is a crystal ball, onto which sunlight is electronically guided, meant to represent the One Truth.
So overall Pondicherry was a brilliant place to spend my first week of post Bangalore travelling. It's gridlike structure and small size meant even I could find my way around with ease, we stayed in hotels ranging from 'expensive' (8 pounds/night) infested with countless colourful Hindu decorations, to 'cheap' (2 pounds/night), where the place's suspicious name (Golden Shower) was testament to the suspicious stain we found on the bedsheet on arrival.. The beach on the town front is filled with rocks and rubbish, but still a great place to sit, watch the sunrise, drink juice from freshly macheted coconuts and have your picture taken by Indians; and there are nicer beaches 15 minutes drive away, void of people and full of sad. There's a big grassy park to sit read and write, where locals don't just treat you like a photogenic zoo animal but ask questions and tell you about their family. And there's as much as you could hope for. Probably more..
After all the heat we decided to run for the hills. Our overnight bus changed in Madurai, which we were going to explore for the day. But after a sleepless night being shaken to our very cores by big bumps, little suspension and Indians so drunk they fall of their seats and sleep and snore and threaten to spew on your shoe, we were tired, and came straight here, to Kodaikanal.
The heat dictates the pace of life in Pondicherry, but doesn't necessarily restrict it. It's nice to let the sun kick your ass as you ponder very slowly along streets under the spotted shade of blossoming trees that grow thoughtfully diagonally from each pavement to meet in the middle in a fruitless attempt to protect you. But soon you realise no stomach on earth can hold enough water to fuel the steady stream of sweat that runs from your nose. Bicycles provide an effective cooling airflow for the duration of the ride, at the cost of a sweat debt that makes a salted slug of you as soon as you dismount. Which is why Pondicherry can accelerate as well as restrict the pace of life, as mopeds make perfect, if selective, common sense.
I don't like driving cars at home. Turning a steering wheel feels very far removed from my innate instinct and ability to control where I'm going. A slight flick of my wrist to the right would feel completely unconnected to the head on collision it would probably result in. And changing lanes unnerves me, I cannot read other drivers and always feel like I'm risking their rage or fatal inattention. A moped in India wins on both counts. Your balance is inextricably bound to your direction, and the roads being the hypervigilante free for all that they are, if there's a space you beep your horn and you take it.
Armed with bikes both pedal and petrol powered, we were able to take day trips free from incessant bartering with rickshaw drivers. One such day trip benefited from predictably poor planning, when Lizzy's moped ran out of petrol on a long country road, just after we had overtaken the strangest funeral procession I have ever seen or heard of. Her clothed body lay visible on a hand drawn cart the size of a small bus, surrounded by hundreds of Indians. Some pulled the cart, some sang, some banged drums, some pelted long chains of flowers off the ground, leaving a multicoloured pleasant smell all along the road behind them. Others took home made grenades, coconuts empty of milk and full of gunpowder, hung them from trees and cacti on the other side of the road, and lit their fuses. We watched from behind a tractor in an exciting mixture of fear and amazement and jumped as loud bangs sent clouds of dust and spiked projectiles flying. Once the procession had passed a safe distance, we returned to the now perfumed road to tackle the petrol problem. Me and Lizzy would wait with the bikes while Dan and Georgia went off in search of petrol.
We were in the middle of nowhere. They were gone a long long time. The heat beat down. Our bottles dried quickly. Hunger struck and I magically remembered a half eaten packet of dates that had been hiding in a small forgotten pocket of my bag since exam revision. My backpack wasn't exactly the cool dry place they requested to be stored in, but the best before date had the final say. We relished them rather than rationed them. Dried fruits hold little water, and as we continued to sweat our thoughts returned to hydration. What would Bear Grylls do? Short of killing a sacred cow for it's bladder, we engineered a source of water from the remnants of the funeral procession. The coconut grenades were now blown in two, and they had a hole bored at the bottom, presumably for extracting milk and injecting explosives. We stabbed holes in a leaf using cactus spikes, and held it to the bottom of the half coconut, over the hole. By grinding cactus fragments inside the coconut with a large stone, we were able to filter it's fluids through the holes in the leaf and collect spike free cactus juice in our empty water bottles. A mouth watering mixture of sheer genius and sheer desperation.
Another day trip took us to the nearby village of Auroville. Auroville is a self proclaimed 'experiment in international living', where earthlings can live side by side free from commercialism and the constraints and conflicts of their respective countries, in the hope of speeding the evolution of the collective unconscious by basking in the universal truths that connect all cultures. The only requirement is that you renounce all religions, which is pretty ironic given their criticism of religions is how each one is at the exclusion of all others. One of a few reasons why I was so cynical about their utopian scene, the other major one being the slow, heavy, enlightened and philisophical voice the video presentation was narrated in. It was quite impressive though. They have a population of over 2,000 people from all over the world; research and practise more sustainable ways of living; practise and perform arts, also from all over the world; educate children from surrounding villages as well as their own; have a plan for the future completed city to be in the shape of a galaxy, the centre of which is the Matrimandir: a large golden golf ball shaped meditation chamber, at the centre of which is a crystal ball, onto which sunlight is electronically guided, meant to represent the One Truth.
So overall Pondicherry was a brilliant place to spend my first week of post Bangalore travelling. It's gridlike structure and small size meant even I could find my way around with ease, we stayed in hotels ranging from 'expensive' (8 pounds/night) infested with countless colourful Hindu decorations, to 'cheap' (2 pounds/night), where the place's suspicious name (Golden Shower) was testament to the suspicious stain we found on the bedsheet on arrival.. The beach on the town front is filled with rocks and rubbish, but still a great place to sit, watch the sunrise, drink juice from freshly macheted coconuts and have your picture taken by Indians; and there are nicer beaches 15 minutes drive away, void of people and full of sad. There's a big grassy park to sit read and write, where locals don't just treat you like a photogenic zoo animal but ask questions and tell you about their family. And there's as much as you could hope for. Probably more..
After all the heat we decided to run for the hills. Our overnight bus changed in Madurai, which we were going to explore for the day. But after a sleepless night being shaken to our very cores by big bumps, little suspension and Indians so drunk they fall of their seats and sleep and snore and threaten to spew on your shoe, we were tired, and came straight here, to Kodaikanal.