Daily Photo – Deep in the Garment Market of Pondicherry
It was nice to get way off the tourist track in India from time to time. This city, Pondicherry, actually has had a name-change like so many cities in India. Now it’s called Puducherry, although I find that most Indians I talked to still call in Pondicherry, so I’m calling it that too. Other names seem to stick better. Like, for example, Bombay is now called Mumbai, and most Indians call it Mumbai. It all comes from those tricky Englishmen who came in, could not say the regular name, and the Englishified it!
This was true paralysis by analysis. We were going to buy some of these garments and fabrics, but we just couldn’t choose which one… there were so many. And right next door there were even more. And next door to that, even more! So you always think you’re gonna see something better, and then at some point, you forget you’re even shopping and you just kinda glaze over!
Daily Photo – Deep in the Garment Market of Pondicherry
It was nice to get way off the tourist track in India from time to time. This city, Pondicherry, actually has had a name-change like so many cities in India. Now it’s called Puducherry, although I find that most Indians I talked to still call in Pondicherry, so I’m calling it that too. Other names seem to stick better. Like, for example, Bombay is now called Mumbai, and most Indians call it Mumbai. It all comes from those tricky Englishmen who came in, could not say the regular name, and the Englishified it!
The day started at Auroville, the experimental City of Dawn, deep off-track in South India. This place reminds me of a sci-fi combo of Burning Man and a cult! Well cult is probably the wrong word… but I’m really into meditation and stuff, so a lot of it appeals to me. This city was started in 1968 by “The Mother” (cult-signals ringing in head) and it’s open to the whole world, but only by appointment and if you give up all other religions. There are actually people from over 50 countries living here… they plan to grow it to 50,000 people. There’s a huge golden sphere inside of which you can “concentrate” in front of a crystal ball which has golden sunlight mechanically reflected into it, unless it is cloudy or there is unconcetrated rain. I’m joking, but I actually would like to go inside of there and meditate. Anyway, I found the whole place fascinating… it’s kind of when you are sitting around with your friends saying, “You know what, if I built my own city, it would look like THIS.”
We spent some time in Puducherry as well, shopping, eating and exploring. There’s a huge beach there that fronts on the Bay of Bengal and the kids had fun running around there.
We also went to visit Brihadeshwarea Temple in Thanjavur, another UNESCO World Heritage site. What an amazing temple! I took a ton of photos but have not had time to process any of them yet. Stay tuned on the site for some of those!
Then in Trichy, we visited Sri Rangam Temple, which is India’s largest temple complex dedicated to Lord Vishnu. I got in a sweet quad flight there and took a ton more photos. Once again, the girls were mobbed by Indians who had never seen white people before… this place was so remote, we didn’t even see any white people except for ourselves. Many people that come here travel from remote villages in India for a pilgrimage to this incredible temple, so they’ve only seen white people in movies and such. The girls had about 1,000 photos taken of them!
The Center of Consciousness.
Sisters grooming.
Isabella has been in about 1000 photos now — many of these people have never seen white people before in person.
Scarlett gets the third eye blessing from Shiva and says shell never rub it off.