Eat at Auroville

Auroville has a number of places to eat. Some accept cash and all of them accept the aurocard.

Solar Kitchen
offers good lunch and dinner. Mostly vegetarian South Indian cuisine with a few side dishes from other parts of the world. Can easily be turned into a vegan meal too. Accepts aurocard only.

La Terrace
A nice restaurant on top of solar kitchen. Good coffee, ice cream and pastries. Can hang out in the shade of large trees. WiFi hot spot. Accepts auro card only.

Tanto
Italian pizzeria in Kuilapalayam. Very good food cozy atmosphere. Mosquitos can ruin the experience, so remember to put on bug repellents.

Satchidananda
Vegan raw food restaurant near Ganesh Bakery. The carrot pie is delicious. Green smoothie is no less awesome. Accepts cash.

Farm Fresh
small neat restaurant near Auroville Bakery. Sells good keffir. Also pastires, cookies, pickels, nuts etc. WiFi hotspot. Accepts cash.

Auoville Bakery
Makes really good bread and pastires. Nice to have freshly baked bread. Accepts cash.

Ganesh bakery
not very good food. But accepts cash.

Dinesh bakery
On the way from Solar Kitchen to Kuilapalayam. Not very good food, but cheap. Accepts cash.

Transport from Auroville to Puducherry

Interior of the bus to Puducherry

Easiest way to reach Puducherry ( Pondicherry ) from Auoville is by bus. Bus from ECR near Auroville to the station at Puducherry costs 5.00 Rs. The last stop of this bus is the bus station at Puducherry.

On the way back from Puducherry to Auroville, one can get on a bus from the station. However, there are two different routes going towards Chennai and both pass through Auroville. One drops you off at the Kuilapalayam (intersection of EC Road) and the other one drops off at Morattandi. Make sure to ride the right bus. Be aware of the rush hour crowd in the bus. The Indian crowd can be very intense.

Next in order of convenience would be autorikshaws. They usually charge around 200.00 Rs from the Auroville to Puducherry or the other way round. Sometimes there is room for bargaining.

Another viable option is to ride a moped or motorbike. But driving a vehicle without a licence is not advisable. The police in Puducherry sometimes flags down tourists driving a moped or motor bike to check their licence. Tamil Nadu police is a bit relaxed in that regard.

Pedaling your way to Puducherry is also possible. It's only 5 kilometers from Auroville after all. This is also a healthy and environmentally friendly option.

Auroville Beaches

Quiet beach in Auroville

A few auroville communities are located on the sea and have their own beaches. I've been to two of those, the Repos beach and the Quiet beach. Repos beach was found crowded throughout the week specially during the weekends. The quiet beach on the other hand was much less crowded. Both beaches were found to be used by local fishermen. Quiet was found to be cleaner than Repos. The only shortcoming of Quiet is that it was about a kilometer to the south from Repos beach sitting only 100 meters from the Quilapalayam intersection on EC Road. The quiet beach is preferred after considering all these factors.

Finding accommodation near the beach can be a bit challenging during the high season i.e. December - February. Most of the hotels are cheap or mid range. Downside of it is that the rooms will often have poor ventilation and lighting. A good alternative is a beach hut. But they usually cost more than the rooms and are in high demand.

Tamil floor decorations

Kolam, the floor decoration of the Tamils

Tamil women draw beautiful ornamental drawing on the floor in front of the entrance every morning. These are called kolam. It is believed that kolam drawings have the power to do something positive for the household. Rice powder is the commonly used material. Sometimes crushed stones and colorful substances are also used.

Fruit Mixture in Pondicherry

Fruit mixture

Menu

I could read Tamil with considerable effort by the time I made it to Puducherry(Pondicherry) for the first time. A man was selling refreshing beverages in his shop near the bus station. The menu was painted on the wall. All I could read and decode with confidence was the second item, fruit mixture.

So I had a glass of that. It was good. Not sweetened beyond normal limit with added sugar or diluted with water to maximize profit. Recommended.

Sadhana Banana

Sadhana Forest provides in theory unlimited supply of bananas for volunteers. On most days this is true in practice as well. After working for a few days I realized the virtue of bananas. Sadhana volunteers powered by bananas work in their first seva. The work includes but not limited to :

• Carrying water buckets
• Planting trees
• Collecting leaves for mulching
• Collecting top soil
• Scooping up compost
• Mixing top soil and compost
• Have fun

Bananas pack lot more energy than I previously thought.

Bees & Termites (2)

Working in the bees & termites team involves climbing

Preventing unwelcome advances from the termites is mostly ground work. But dealing with the carpenter bees is a different paradigm altogether. It involves plenty of climbing - sometimes quite high and in challenging corners - on the huts' main structure. This calls for physical and fitness and decent level of dexterity.

Two parts of the epoxy compound

Epoxy is being mixed

Epoxy mix is ready to be used

A hole in hardwood pole

The hole after patching with epoxy

The instructions are simple. Find a bee hole, climb to reach it, then seal it with an epoxy sealant which you or a fellow volunteer mixed for you a few minutes ago. Oh, and be careful not to lose your grip.

The sealant is obtained from the local market as a two part epoxy compound. Its soft and pliable like putty during and soon after mixing. Becomes stiff like plastic in about 10 minutes. Very convenient. But also expensive and probably not very good for the environment. I saw room for improvement here. Experimenting with alternative materials - environmentally friendly and cheap ones, of course - seemed to be an effort worth undertaking.

Bees & Termites (1)

Jacob, a sadhana forest volunteer in bees & termites team

Protecting the huts from ever active termites and carpenter bees is a daily challenge in Sadhana Forest. Bees & Termites team bravely accepts this challenge as a regular maintenance job in Sadhana.

Carpenter bees like to drill hole to make nests in the hardwood poles of the huts' main structure. If not prevented, the bees can hollow out an entire pole to bring the hut down. While bees attack from air, termites have a ground up approach towards the huts. But the end results are pretty much the same.

Local knowledge says that termites don't like walking on granite surface. So granite columns are used as base for the huts. Vegetation around the huts are also cleared regularly to prevent alternative path for termites to reach any part of a hut from ground.