Living Quarters in Sadhana Forest

Dorm for Sadhana Forest volunteers

Indigenous Tamil style huts are the ubiquitous accommodations of Sadhana Forest. Some huts have second floor or small attics too. Most volunteers in Sadhana Forest gets to sleep in dormitories. The dorms are basically large huts. There are three dorms at the time of writing this, two of them are two stories. Long term volunteers get special treatment, they live in their own huts.

The sturdy huts made of hardwood, and coconut leaves and ropes are quite impressive. A big opening in the front serves as door. Usually the huts come with multiple opening on the side, all triangular, serving as windows. This allows plenty of wind to pass through in all directions.

Interior of kitchen dorm, upstairs

There were three dorms for volunteers during my stay at Sadhana Forest. Kitchen dorm (where I stayed), curtain dorm and the training dorm. The training dorm has rooms for long term volunteers in the ground floor and there is a library upstairs. Other two dorms were for short term volunteers.


Kitchen dorm is also two stories high. Rooms downstairs are seperated from each other by curtains. There are two beds in each of this rooms. The beds are Indian style 'khatiya' i.e. coconut rope beds. Feels like a hammock. I don't like this kind of beds because they lack in lumber support. Upstairs is one big open space shared by everyone. Beds here are basically mattresses laid on the floor. This was a better arrangement in my humble opinion. I also liked sharing the space with others as it allowed more socializing.