..and then there was auroville

just a few kilometers from pondicherry was auroville, an odd little city we'd heard about, mainly for its architecture.

since it was relatively close, we thought we would just rent some scooters and zip through the six (or maybe 10.. we never really got a straight answer) kilometers and be back in no time. well, after a few wobbly test runs up and down a quiet street we decided maybe the indian highway wasn't the best place to debut our scooter skills. we settled for regular old bicycles and headed out onto the open (congested) road.

all that for stop?

for a while everything was good. the city traffic cleared out.. we passed furniture workshops and open fields.. we even got a glimpse of the beautiful blue bay. then we hit kilometer five and i thought 'how much more of this?!' luckily my legs came back and i got a hearty second wind. it was about then that we were informed that auroville was, in fact, behind us. we had gone about 5 kilometers too far. whoops.

thatched huts on the path to the water

back we went, in search of a break somewhere before making the turn to auroville, provided we could find it. naturally, we thought of the sea, glittering and blue, tempting us in the 90 degree heat. we hauled our bikes through meters of sand only to find an impassible stretch of water. we forged ahead and made our way to a rather deserted 'resort' area that had apparently been damaged by the recent cyclone. did i mention there had been a cyclone? we changed into our suits in a crude sort of outhouse and took a short dip in the water as fully-clothed and underpants-ed locals looked on.
it was weird. still - bay of bengal: check.

pretty exhausted from biking and daunted at the thought of the 'up and down' road to auroville we bargained for an auto to take us the rest of the way, leaving our bikes locked on the side of the road. this ended up being a very wise decision, as the road to auroville (perhaps metaphorically?) was bumpy. along the way we passed signs for places named things like 'Surrender' and 'Certitude'. yeah, it's that kind of place..

when we finally got to the visitors center we were meant to watch a 10 minute video before getting our passes. we politely (succintly? curtly) declined and luckily they didn't put up a fuss. all the literature surrounding us talked about thing like the Divine Consciousness and seemed to like capitalizing Random Words. after our long day of bike riding, we weren't having it. we spent what turned out to be a rather long walk to view the famed temple (mantri mandir, officially) complaining - completely disregarding the signs for silence, and perhaps in a burst of karma, my dying sandal finally gave out. eventually, though, we made it to the viewing point.

and what was our reward for this long journey?

there she is

that's right. a giant gold golf ball. yes, this was the closest we could get to it. and no, we couldn't go inside. those passes had to be got the day before. incidentally, it's supposed to be quite an experience. all white inside.

we made our way back to the auto just before our pre-negotiated hour cutoff. then it was a rather painless bike ride the five or so kilometers back to pondicherry. thank goodness for a relaxing dinner of fantastic french food.