Day 3 and rollin along

This place continues to be shocking every step of the way. I am trying to grapple with everything but it is total sensory overload. Anyways...

Well Ali and I have been going to bed around 7:30pm the past two nights mainly because we are tired but also because we are trying to prepare ourselves for our work days in Auroville which will begin at 4am. Going to bed at 7 means that I am wide awake by 2am, read for about a half an hour and they fall back to sleep until 5am. We get ready thinking that we are going to get a head start on out day but the earliest anything is open or functioning is 9am and even then when they say things are going to open at 9 it usually means 9:30 or 10. So then we are like...oh shit what we gonna do.

Yesterday we dropped off some reading glasses at one of the eye clinics in Chennai that Ali will be volunteering at in the end of December. From there we went to the CMBT which is Chennai's central bus station hoping to get a bus to Ponducherry. Luckily just as we showed up an empty bus heading to Ponducherry showed up so we scrambled on and grabbed spots in the front of the bus hoping for air and the front seat action. It was a 3.5 hour bus ride - 55 Rs each, which is about $1.05. Pretty sweet. The ride was pretty action packed. The driver drove only full speed, which was fine I guess I like living life in the fast lane...however this poses a problem when there is a cow standing in the middle of the street. More times than I can count he slammed on the breaks while laying on the horn when there was a cow crossing or chilling in the middle of the street. Neither of which phased the cows at all. Also, buses for some reason are the fastest automobiles on the street and also the biggest, meaning they do whatever they want. I cant believe nothing was killed on that ride. Madness.

So surprisingly we got to Ponducherry all in one peace and took an auto to "International Guest House" It is a guest house for people attending one of the many Ashrams here in Pondy. It was surprisingly clean and big and had a shower and toilet for $9. It is was also right in the middle of town - and we had a lot of shit to get done so...good pick. Ponducherry is interesting. It was an old French colony and is also right on the beach. There are a lot more travelers here and also sidewalks...which means we can walk which is great. In a bit Ali and I are going to go meet Yorit and Aviram, the people who run Sadhana forest, they are going to take us to Auroville and from there I have no idea what else to expect, which is pretty much the theme of my life right now.

I saw an elephant this morning too outside a temple. It is Dawalli here, some sort of Indian new years. Other than that takin it day my day - mainly trying to not get killed crossing the street.