Day 91 - Mallamapuram to Pondicherry, India - Cyclone Nilam

Day 91 – His

 

We managed to get coffee this morning in only 5 minutes. That might not sound like a lot but yesterday when we tried it took over an hour. That seemed to define the quality of the day. It was mostly efficient and lived up to expectations but then the expectations weren’t very high. We are due to be hit by cyclone Nilam later today and everybody is hunkering down. We set off from Mallamapurham at around nine and drove to Auroville.

Auroville is a kind of aging hippies’ dream that has lost its way. It was started in the sixties by some swami and his ‘friend’ who insists on being called ‘the Mother’ and having everybody who comes to the place wanting to follow the way of the divine consciousness. For anywhere that espouses following divine consciousness it is always best to be a little circumspect – I find.

Anyway, despite the somewhat shaky philosophy that surrounds the place they managed to get the budget together to build some pretty impressive buildings. One in particular was a huge golden golf ball with a big marble in the middle of it that you sit in front of and contemplate your navel. But only if you book weeks in advance and give them half your salary.

Still, it didn’t disappoint me – but then as I said my expectations weren’t high. The trip there was mostly to satisfy tourists and what i wanted to do was spend a few hours looking at their water recycling plant and a few of their alternative energy experiments – but as i was the only one who wanted to do that i think the chances were pretty small.

Of course it rained. And heavily, and it has just rained and rained and rained. Dennis, our new guide – arranged a lunch for us – which was just about the best laid on dinner we have had. From there we drove into Pondicherry and pulled over at the beach to watch the approaching cyclone pushing the waves over the breakwaters and into the town.

The rain absolutely soaked us through and as Pondicherry is on high alert, our guide has told us we need to forget about going into town tonight and expect to sit in our hotels until the storm has passed. So we all went down to the local market to shop for fruit and snacks and prepared ourselves for a pounding by the weather.

So most of the late afternoon was spent in the hotel foyer playing cards and scrabble, drinking rum and chatting as we waited. As it happens the storm hit 80 miles to the north of us – in Mallapuram as it happens – just where we were this morning – but we were relatively safe – quite an anti climax – ah well at least we aren’t as badly off as the new Yorkers and hurricane Sandy.