Mysore Palace

When we visited the Mysore Palace, where the Maharajah used to live, we had the opportunity to ride a camel.  It was a fun, but bumpy ride.  I don't think I'd want to cross a desert on one of these.

Technical difficulties

Oy.  It's been almost a month since my last blog post.  My ambitions for regular entries was thwarted by two major technical difficulties: (1) my external hard drive, on which I was storing video, crapped out; and (2) we lost our video camera (a bizarre occurrence I still can't figure out).  We do have a digital camera, which takes (poor) video and I will try to post photos and some video to catch up on our travels.  We appreciate your patience and interest.

Shivanasamudra Waterfalls

On our recent travels, we were visiting a temple (Somnathpur) outside of Mysore, when our driver Kallai insisted we continue on to see the Shivanasamudra Waterfalls.  We had considered going as a group earlier, but decided not to when we learned we couldn't swim there (and really, in this heat, what is the point of looking at water you can't get into).

We went anyway (mostly to humor Kallai) and were beginning to have doubts after another hour on poor roads.  When we got there, we saw the waterfalls, took some photos and were about to head back when Kallai said "No! No. This way!" and led us to the top of a long stairway built into the hill that led down to the water.  Again, we were hesitant, but slowly we all trickled down the slope.

You'll see what we saw and did in the video.  It was one of the best surprises of the whole trip!

Basketball Finals

A basketball match isn't exactly something I expected to watch while in Auroville, but they take it pretty seriously here and since one of our students (Ben) and both our "Cohort Coordinators" (Boomi and Segar) were playing -- and actually made it to the finals ... well, I couldn't resist trying my hand at a little sports journalism.  Okay, Howard Cosell I'm not...

Climbing Arunachula

Okay, the story is that Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu (the three main Hindu Gods) were having an argument over who was the greatest.  As a test, Shiva turned himself into a pillar of fire and told Vishnu and Brahma, whoever first reaches one of the ends of the pillar was certainly the greatest.  Vishnu turned into a boar and began digging into the Earth and Brahma turned into a swan and flew high into the sky.  Of course, neither found the end so Shiva was proclaimed the greatest of all Gods.

Arunachula Mountain is considered to be the very body of Shiva and, once a year, they commemorate this story by lighting a HUGE bonfire on the top.  It is also a pilgrimage to walk to the top.  We started at 6am and it took two hours to climb the 2,688 feet!.  We took our shoes off at the very top, which was a bit sketchy as it was covered in black goo from all the burned ghee butter.  Anyway, we all had a short puja with a swami and were actually served tea in a small, ramshackle hut. We weren't exactly sure where the milk came from (monkeys?), but didn't ask.

It was a very special hike that I will always remember.

Weekend in Tiruvannamalai

A few weekends ago our "cohort" had the opportunity to travel to Tiruvannamalai, a temple town and pilgrimage site about three hours northwest from Auroville.  We stopped for breakfast at Gingee and viewed Moghul hill forts, which date back to the Chola dynasty in 9th century AD.  During our 2 1/2 days there, we ...

• Walked 13km around the sacred Arunachula Mountain, considered to be the body of Shiva;
• Visited Sri Ramanamaharshi's Ashram & walked to a cave where he meditated for 23(!) years;
• We also had lunch at the ashram and talked with Michael, a monk originally from Texas;
• That afternoon, we visited Arunachaleeswarar Temple, the largest Shiva temple in India;
• The next morning, the students and I climbed for 2 hours to the summit of Arunachula;
• We also ate in some amazing restaurants and had time to relax and walk around.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend.  I hope you enjoy the video.

Simone's tour of Deepanam School

At long last, here is a video Simone showing off Deepanam, the school she is attending while in Auroville.  It was difficult condensing it as the original footage is almost 20 minutes long!  Enjoy!