What's so special about India? # part 1

In India you never, or at least very rarley use toiletpaper.
Instead the toilet will be equipped with an extra watertap next to the toilet itself.
Practical! And way better for the nature not to waste all that paper.

 At first it felt strange. Then slowly we got used to it. Now we are considering never going back.
Toiletpaper is an unnecessary luxury in invented by western society? We think so.

Stay tuned for more crazy indian facts coming up :)
(Said with our very best tvcommercial voices)

Tranquebar & Tiruvannamalai - Impressions

                                          The old danish fort in Tranquebar.
Tranquebar is an old danish colony, even though today only the fort, the church and a "danish shop" (which doesn't sell any danish things) reminds of the old days. Still, a lot of Danes come to visit this beautiful idyllic little town.

                                   German writings in the old danish church.

Nina after our first Pooja in Arunachaleswara Temple in Tiruvannamalai.We were a bit confused because we just saw some people waiting for something and so we decided to join them. We then found out what a Pooja is: you go into the inner part of the temple, give some donations and receive a red dot on your forehead in return. It was so much fun that we decided to do it once again, in another part of the temple. There we received some white powder, which is used to make a white stripe, again on the forehead. The different colors and signs are symbolic for the different gods in Hinduism.

                                      One of the entrances of the temple.

Happy Pongal!

The biggest Ferrero Rocher in the world

Last Sunday there was a big festival here in Sadhana. About 300 children from different schools came to celebrate the first birthday of a project called Children's Land. It's a part of the forest that children can create and use as they want to. Some of the people (of the long-termers) living in Sadhana are responsible for this project, and they guide and support the children that come here. But for the birthday the help of all of us was needed. There were different workshops: music, sports, handicrafts, games, a clay village, face painting, and boat building (which Simone was a part of). It was a very very exhausting day, but also full of energy. It was so good to see how happy the children were  - even though they were really uncontrollable!

And then, this weekend, we finally made our way to the centre of Auroville: the Matrimandir. It's this Ferrero Rocher-thing you see in the picture, and it's Auroville's most important sacred place. Inside (but it is very difficult to get permission to go inside; we even had to watch a movie just to see it from the outside) there is the world's largest crystal. The Matrimandir is also used as a place for concentration and meditation.

Now we are half way through our stay here in Sadhana. By the way: New Year's was good. We didn't make it until the next morning, but we had some dates and cashews as a special dinner, and we chanted into the new year while dancing around a bonfire in the forest together with the other volunteers. (and we did Blei giessen!)
So happy new year to all of you!

Christmas at Sadhana Forest, Auroville

A little bit too late, we know... but as we are living on a super-ecological farm now (actually, they are reforesting an area), internet is hard to find. Super-ecological means, that it is a community with quite strict rules: no alcohol, no smoking, only vegan food, no competitive games, no oil, no chili, no sweets, BUT: very complicated toilets, shower buckets, a lot of good music, great people, a relaxing atmosphere, workshops every day, singing, dancing and learning. As there is high season right now, there are nearly 100 people, and so, of course, it took us some time to arrive here and to feel comfortable. (but sometimes it is good to come out and play Scrabble and eat cheese)

For Christmas (on the 25th) we made presents for other people, and we had a very good dinner together, followed by a performance about Jesus' birth. And then, in the workshop about astronomy, we saw some shooting stars and made wishes for next year!

Pictures from Mamallapuram

 

Shore Temple

                                                                  One of the five Rathas

                                                        Nina and the monkey

                                                                       Arjuna's Penance

The big tourist attraction

Finally we managed to do some sight-seeing. Mamallapuram is also one of the best places to do that. Just by walking through the city you see a lot of temples, rock-cut caves and reliefs. So yesterday we decided to do the whole package: We took some water, the travel guide and off we went.

At first we went to see the 5 Rathas, which are monolith-temples discovered by the Britains. While Nina learned the guide book by heart and tried to find all the details about the different gods, and the facts about a vedic story (the Rathas were named after the 5 brothers in this story), Simone took her camera and discovered the place. It had a strange atmosphere. You stand there and you know how incredible old those stones are, but still it looks like somebody had just built them some days ago.

Another strange thing we experienced is, that we are also some kind of attraction for Indians. During the whole last day we made about 5 pictures together with Indians. Or they took photos of us, to say the truth. At first they just stare and smile at us, and then they take their mobile phone and try to take some secret pictures, but, of course, this is very obvious. And they can't take really good pictures where everybody can see properly, that (believe it or not) they are REALLY standing next to white people! So I wonder on how many tourist photos were are going to end until we leave India. Perhaps we become some local celebrities?!

After the Rathas we made our way to the Shore temple, which is directly at the sea side. This place was even nicer than the first one. Between the actually two temples you can watch a big Shiva sleeping on a stone bench. And the whole temple complex is guarded by around 30 very terrifying stone bulls.

To come to an end, we went to see Arjuna's Penance, which is a huge stone carving. This carving has a touch of irony: Beside Arjuna's penance you can also see a cat making the same position as Arjuna, and a crowd of mice looking at it.

So that was it. Pictures are coming soon!!

Today we made our way to Pondicherry/Puducherry, where we are going to stay until Monday. We wanted to stay in Mamallapuram and make a bicycle trip today, but as nobody told the south Indians that it's dry season now, it was pouring down the whole night and morning, and it didn't quite stop until the afternoon. So now we are here. This is a former french colony, why a lot of street signs etc. are still in french. I like that. À bientôt!

The Sound of Mandolins

Ok. We have no inspiration for writing serious posts this evening.
We actually wanted to tell you that yesterday ,our last evening in Chennai, we went to a mandolinconcert
and we liked it a lot. We bought tickets for a hundred rupees but ended up in the VIP seats. We had dinner in good company and some nice conversations. Today we left Chennai and took the bus to Mamallapuram where we have seen a monkey in a dress and ate orange spaghetti for dinner.Tomorrow we are gonna do some sight-seeing before we are leaving for our new farm.

children's hour

To Kasper that might read our blog and to other interested people

, we now have the answer!

Does bees sleep?

Yes, indeed, bees "sleep". Though there is always a lot of activity in a bee hive, mostly in the brood area where the queen is laying eggs, it is possible to observe worker bees around the edges of the comb and on the side walls that are resting and quiet. Research done as recently as 1988 showed that bees at rest exhibit some of the same characteristics as humans in a sleep period: they don't move around, they don't react to stimuli very readily, their muscles relax, and their body temperature drops. So, while the buzzing in the hive is probably not snoring, research concludes that bees do sleep. (Reference: Southwick, E. E. "Bee sleep". American Bee Journal 131:165-166, 1991

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_bee%27s_sleep#ixzz18BnCESmC

Shortly:

The place we are staying is wonderful. Our bed looks like a princessbed with the mosquito-net
Just wanted to tell you. We are in Chennai :)