Auroville Day 2

Auroville Day 2  25/09/11

Today was a much more relaxed day than yesterday. We hit the beach early in the morning and then headed to Pondicherry after lunch. I’m glad that I was able to go back to Pondicherry and just roam around, something that I love to do.  We went to a museum which was kinda lame, but it’s ok. It only really had some broken bits of pottery, some old coins and statues of Hindu Gods. While in Pondicherry we visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I felt that we were a big disturbance in an otherwise peaceful ritual. Just as we all settled down after some of the students were asked to sit somewhere else, Bryan Plymale’s (a chaperone) phone went off. So all we hear in this dead of silence is ‘Hey Mama’ by the Black Eyed Peas. Needless to say we didn’t stay very long. Afterwards we all split up and went our separate ways. We went to some little shops, got lost, found our way then got lost again, but we didn’t care, we had so much time before we had to meet up with the rest of the group. We eventually stumbled upon an elephant in front of a temple! Of course I had to get a picture. 

It’s weird to shop in India because I don’t know the value of anything, and the values themselves don’t make any sense either. I mean I could get a drink for 100 rupees, but I could also get a scarf for 100 rupees. By Indian standards I am ripped off on some items, but to me it’s extremely cheap if I convert it back to Canadian.

Friendly shopkeeper who offered us tea and Hindi lessons

At around 7 we all met up to go eat dinner. We went to an Italian restaurant called Don Giovanni’s. The food was pretty good but the service was horrible. All our food was brought out at different times, orders were screwed up, and some people got food while others didn’t. I couldn’t understand, especially when Bryan had gone ahead to make the menu. I guess they got a little scrambled with all 30 of us.

We got back to Auroville late which means I’m going to go to bed late which means I’m not going to get enough sleep tonight. Tomorrow we have to wake up at 5:30 AM to make it to the Buddha garden by 6ish. I am really excited though because Buddha Garden is one of Auroville’s organic farms, and this is an area of Auroville that I’m really curious about. Well, until tomorrow…