Sadhana Forest Part 2

We have been in Sadhana forest for three weeks now, and it is feeling strangely homely. We are in the routine of getting up stupidly early at 5.45 am (although this doesn’t make it any easier) and doing our daily jobs. Jonno is still doing forest work and community jobs, and I have joined the children’s project which is run alongside Sadhana forest. The project is called ‘Children’s Land’ and it is visited by six different groups of children, some from the local village schools, some afterschool projects and an orphanage. The project is built on the idea of ‘unschooling’ which believes that school is not the best learning environment for children as it does not allow them the freedom to learn and discover things by themselves and makes learning uninteresting, and that children already have the desire to learn by themselves without being forced. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling if you want to know more about it). When the groups of children come, they can do whatever they want and although we set out some activities they are not forced to do anything (basically an Indian Challengers!). The group of us that help out at children’s land also are required to study the concepts of unschooling and discuss it and we also learn some of the local language- Tamil. The children are gorgeous and most of them speak basic English which definitely helps. It is also fascinating to see how groups of children from a different culture interact and the roles they assume even as children. Last weekend I was cooking with one of the groups when all of a sudden they started shouting ‘pooja!’ and gathering and requesting items. I asked one of the girls what they were doing and she told me to come with them. I followed them through the forest and to a shaded area with some statues. All of the children were rushing around, sweeping leaves away and sprinkling the ground with water. I then discovered ‘pooja’ is a hindu ritual. After the ground was prepared, they took out some powder and drew designs on the floor at the feet of all the statues, lit firelighters in the middle of the designs and placed an oil lamp at the front. We then had to take it in turns to kneel by the statue and another child went around marking our foreheads with coloured powder. The children’s level of excitement around carrying out this religious ritual was both incredibly interesting and contagious.

Children's land

Playing in the mud pool!

We are getting used to the hippy, eco friendly way of life at Sadhana, and are accepting that we are permanently dirty, as soon as you step off of the shower block you are back in the dirt so any attempt to stay clean is futile. The food is…well……food, we are living off a staple diet of papaya, pineapple, rice, dahl (a stew made of pulses), vegetable broth and salad. Oh, and unlimited bananas. We have on a few occasions had some hummus and something like a chapatti, and we are all jubilant. When we have the chance to eat out though, Jonno feasts on chicken and I keep to my challenge of being vegetarian but treat myself to paneer (an indian type of cheese). As much as I can deal with a lot of aspects of the community I am still struggling with the wildlife. Our room is some kind of noah’s ark, and is inhabited by (but not limited to) cockroaches, a wasps nest, mosquitoes, spiders, frogs, bats, a type of chipmunk and an occasional cat. We are told that we should not keep any food in our rooms, and we soon discovered why. On returning to our bedspace one evening, I noticed that my rucksack was missing. I searched everywhere around the bed, but still could not find it. First came a wave of anger…there must be a thief in the community! How could these seemingly friendly people steal my backpack! Then came the realisation….there might have been some snacks in that rucksack. We then started a hunt around in the woodland outside the hut, and after a while we found it….my rucksack had been ransacked and the perpetrator had managed to get what it wanted, leaving the non edible items sprawled in the surrounding area. That will teach me.

Even when I am trying to do some yoga the wildife gets in the way...I think Ruby and Dobby have Indian contacts.

We have also donated our nourishment to the wildlife in other ways. Both me and Jonno seem to be the delicacy of the local mosquito, and unfortunately for Jonno his bites have not reacted well. We have been trying all sorts of lotions and repellents, both natural and highly toxic, but nothing seems to be working. Nobody else in the community seems to be getting bitten despite them not wearing any repellent, so we are definitely feeling bullied, and spend most of the nights itching like crazy.

Jonno's diseased arm

No wonder he is getting bitten so much...his tactic was to fend away mosquitoes with the repellent tube 

As we have been talking to people at Sadhana, the conversation has naturally come up as to what our jobs in England were. Unfortunately for Jonno, his job with computers was mentioned and the secret was out. He now has had crowds flocking around him with everybody’s IT related problems, and can’t escape it. He has even had his own ‘seva’ (job) created for him and whilst everyone else plants trees in the forest he is fixing computers, and setting up printers and programmes. Even in a forest in the middle of nowhere he is never far from a computer crisis. I think I might have to make him a cape and he can wear his pants over his trousers….

We have also been attempting to explore the local area when we have free time and we have not accidentally fallen asleep in a hammock after our morning’s work. The nearest city is Pondicherry, about a 20 minute drive away. Pondicherry is a bit different to other indian cities, as well as the usual crowded marketplaces and endless horn beeping of traffic there is still an area around the coast where there is French influence from when they owned the area. This has lead to a section of the city with quaint French buildings, art galleries and café’s before returning to the usual Indian chaos. We have visited Pondicherry a few times, and only found a small number of items we were looking for. One of these items that took a lot of hunting was a laptop to replace the broken mess that was our tablet. We were mistaken in our thinking we might be able to find a second hand laptop, when asking various computer shops we were received with blank stares. So instead went on a hunt for a cheap new laptop. We saw many signs for computer shops but not all of them actually lead to computer shops, and of those that were a lot of them were closed. One of these promised places we tried to find had an arrow on the wall leading to a tiny alleyway, stacked high with rubbish and bags of items. We then had to negotiate our way past a room of hay bales, climb up some dodgy looking stairs, down another corridor and step over a sleeping man to reach the computer shop, which was then closed anyway. We finally found a shop that had an average looking small laptop for a fairly good price, so decided to go for that. We only had one smallish backpack with us to carry the laptop back, and the shop insisted that we needed to take the laptop box with us too. So I started to rearrange the contents of my bag, trying to cram in the laptop with packaging in tetris style. The woman in the shop watched our struggle for a few minutes and then disappeared, emerging with a big bag of loose tea leaves as an extra gift for the purchase of the laptop. This was a very nice gesture but then meant the challenge got harder, which made me suspicious that the gift was more for the entertainment value.

Way to the computer shop...

....via this room

On another afternoon we were walking through one of the busy market places in Pondicherry when suddenly I noticed Jonno was not behind me. I found him on the corner of the street, in deep conversation with a man selling bongos. I thought this was a bit strange, as usually we try to escape the street sellers as fast as we can. Jonno beckoned me over, and it turned out that the seller he was talking to in fact used to live and work in Goa, and remembered us from when we were in Goa on our last trip to Goa last year. I didn’t think we were that memorable…and we didn’t buy bongos from him on either occasion!

When we are feeling less energetic we tend to opt for the local cafes, and judge the establishment on the quality and price of the chai (tea) there. Our current favourite place has 2 very comfy chair hammocks and we can easily spend hours there drinking cheap chai and reading. It is definitely useful to have the superbike to take us places, even though more often than not it does seem to have a mind of its own and turn into a bucking bronco after every speedbump. We did on one occasion push the bike to its limits and manage to get three of us on there (also just trying to fit in with the indian culture- you haven’t achieved anything unless you have managed to get a family of five with a refrigerator on a motorbike).

Chilling in the cafe

There are also a few times we have ventured out in the evenings, and have managed to find some cafes with live music which are generally free- even better! Sometimes the expectation vs reality is slightly different. One event a few people in Sadhana mentioned was a bonfire that was happening nearby, so we thought we would check it out. However, the directions we were given were very vague- in fact we were told to look for signposts to ‘infinity’ and from there to ‘follow the vibe’. So off we went on our old not so reliant in search of this bonfire. Soon enough we found ourselves in a maze of sandy pathways, completely lost and no sign for ‘infinity’ in sight….buzz lightyear we were not.  We bumped into a few more people on mopeds who were going to the same place, we followed them for a while but this was an even worse mistake. The path they lead us down involved a mass of thorny bushes on one side and a fence of barbed wire on the other side- with about 1 meter gap to pass through. Thankfully Jonno has had a lot of experience with these type of situations and I have seen him ride through hoops of fire before so he lead us smoothly through the death trap.

However, we were still no closer to this bonfire. In the end, the only thing left to do was to follow the advice given and ‘follow the vibe’. Once we switched off the bike engine we could hear in the distance a faint thumping music, so this is the direction we headed for. We did this a few more times, circling the ‘vibe’ until we found a mass of bikes parked up and decided it was this place. What we expected was a smallish bonfire with maybe a few people with drums and at the very most a few people dancing around the bonfire. What we arrived at was a rave, with a full on sound system, lights and a bar. Most of the people there were intoxicated from various substances. Now in any normal circumstance this would have been a great opportunity for a party, but as we had signed a contract in blood that throughout our time in Sadhana we would not drink even outside of Sadhana, added to the fact that we were both exhausted from a week of early mornings and forest work, this did not put us in the party mood. We tried for a while to hype ourselves up, but shamefully only stayed until midnight before we decided it was not happening and headed back.

So one more week to go at Sadhana Forest…a lot of the people we met and have got close to here have already left which is strange to get used to…the group of 120 we arrived to is now down to about 50. We have also been so preoccupied in our jobs and routines here that we have not done much planning for our next part of the journey, guess we had better do that soon….

Jonno working hard sifting ash

Sadhana Forest Part 1

So we are now at a place called Sadhana Forest (http://sadhanaforest.org), which is a reforestation project that also does water conservation and community living. The minimum stay here is a month so we are here for a while. There are a lot of rules here, and I mean a lot. There is a rule on how to use the toilet, wash up dishes, having a shower, eating and serving food and brushing your teeth. This is because everything is made to conserve water and to try and create zero wastage. So hand washing stations are metal cups with a small hole in the bottom and you tip some water in and wash your hands in the trickle that comes from the hole. The toilets have separate holes where you pee and poo so that they can use them for compost, and every bit of water goes into the earth to water the surrounding trees. So initially this was a big shock and a lot of things to get used to, a simple toilet trip becomes a version of The Crystal Maze (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwyiyO2Sp6Y), and when its dark it adds another level of difficulty. 

Fancy toilets that require a high level of problem solving

Another aspect of sadhana forest is the work. The day starts at 5.45 and you are expected to do 2 jobs, or what they call sevas, which last until midday. On top of that is a few community shifts a week to keep the community running. Some of the sevas include going to the forest to plant and maintain trees, and others are day to day maintenance like emptying toilets, cleaning and cooking.

Serving area and Technology area

The main hut- our communal area

There are about a hundred volunteers working here. Some are long term volunteers, who have been here months and years, but most are short-term volunteers who like us are only here for a month to get a bit of a taste of what this life is like. We are encouraged to be a close community, so we all eat together and have to serve food to others before ourselves. We also sleep in big dorms of between 50 and 60 , so not much privacy!
Jonno and I are both facing our own challenges by being here. For me, its living and sleeping pretty much outside, bugs and all, and not being able to have my comforts like my hair dryer and straighteners, perfume and make up. For Jonno it is the early mornings, the spirituality and what he calls 'floaty' bits. There is a lot of talk about feelings and hugging, so he can't get away from it! The good thing is that we both understand when each of us is struggling and we can vent to each other.

The food served here is vegan but there are some times we have to eat out for lunch/dinner, and no meals are compulsory but our contribution is mostly towards food. I don't think I could handle trying to be vegan for a whole month (that would mean no chai tea!!) but I am trying to do it being vegetarian (everyone at east Surrey hospital- the rumour I was vegetarian can be true for a bit!). Jonno on the other hand, the savage caveman that he is, couldn't do it. Two days after we arrived we went out for lunch with a group of people from sadhana. As we were all looking at the menu, some hardcore people choosing a vegan option and others of us allowing ourselves a treat of a milkshake or some cheese on our dosa, there was hushed tones and giggling coming from the corner of the table where Jonno and another girl who started the same day as us. They beckoned the waiter over and mouthed something to him. They were then presented with 2 bowls of tender, mouth watering chicken and watched half the table glare with envy as they devoured all of it, looking very pleased with themselves. Terrible! We also have been rebellious by still using shower gel and shampoo, and using toothpaste instead of the tooth powder provided which is basically dirt with a slight smell of mint. We have devised a system to hide our heinous crime by using a few bottles and trying to be as quiet as possible, we have not been outed yet so I think we are getting away with it. Some of the other volunteers/anarchists  have admitted to the same thing, so we are not the only ones!


We have met some really lovely and interesting people here. There are people from lots of different countries who all have different stories and reasons for being here. I feel we have the easy option as we are expected to speak English in the community, and have to watch many people struggling to express themselves in a second language. I can't begin to imagine if the tables were turned and somebody told us we had to communicate with everyone in French or German, my frustration level would be a lot higher!

The local area is called Auroville and is a separate society to the rest of India. Its ideals are that everyone from every background can live harmoniously and they use an exchange system rather than currency, and live in an eco friendly way. Jonno and I are yet to be convinced, seeing the surrounding villages still living in poverty makes it difficult not to be cynical. But I guess there is always time, we might change our minds yet.

The centre of Auroville

We also now have our own mode of transportation, a monster of a 50 cc moped covered with some beautiful rust patterns, which means we can get out a lot easier. While exploring the other day, heading down the open road, we came across some kind of road blockage. As we approached, there was a huge float covered with flowers, dancers  and we could hear loud music and fireworks. Thinking we had just come across a huge party we started walking beside the procession, wheeling the moped through. I then turned my head to look inside the float and realised there was the body of a man with his eyes sewn shut lying there, and people walking beside wailing. We were in the middle of a funeral. After this realisation we tried to get past quickly which was in no way easy as they had taken up the whole road. After getting past the crowd we jumped on the bike only to then have to ride James bond style between the fireworks that were strewn across the middle of the road and were going off at random times. Never a boring moment in India!

Jonno taming the beast

So we are now on day 5 of 31 in sadhana forest, getting into the flow of it but not always finding it easy, let's see what the rest of the month brings!

Planting my first tree!

Jonno getting involved in some mulching

Chennai

Now to the next major stop, Chennai. We're hungover but still smiling and now lugging our ridiculously oversized bags towards the closest tuktuk, after a quick stop off at the nearby corner shop for snacks, water and fruit. A moments haggling with our driver and we're on our way to what we hoped was the location the coach would be stopping at, Kadamba Bus Station - Canacona.

We arrived and immediately India style confusion kicks in. Our driver reliably informs us with complete certainty that we might possibly be in the right place. Or it could be 10 minutes down the road. But it could not be. Although it might. Nobody really knows, but everyone seemed to have an opinion, and that was that we should be further down the road as there were more white people waiting there than where we were. People even took time out of their day to turn around and tell us they were certain we shouldn't be here, which would be extremely helpful had we not been pretty sure our instructions for where to wait were correct.

To clarify, I called the coach company, who reliably informed us they had a coach and it will come by the vague area. They did however confirm my seat numbers with just my first name, which was fairly reassuring they had us registered at least. We were no clearer on the situation, so walked down to where we were being pointed to. Turned out, everyone here was headed to Hampi, and looked like they were waiting just as long as we had been. Not wanting to miss the coach, we headed back to what we believed to be the correct spot.

Fortunately, earlier in the day we got a text with details on how to track the coach, which was a godsend as, by typical Indian standards, the coach was an hour late. Had we not been able to see it was still 70km away, we would have assumed we had missed it.

10 minutes away and I stand in the road with hopes of flagging it down should the coach be intending to stop further down the road. Luckily, no need, against all odds and advice, the coach arrived exactly where we had hoped. We launch our bags into the luggage compartment and climb aboard. By now it's 10pm, people are already asleep and being that the coach is a 'semi sleeper', all the seats apart from ours were in a mostly reclined position. Great for those already seated and enjoying their comfortable sleepy slalom around the Indian roads, but not so great for us with our smaller backpacks trying to navigate ourselves through a tiny crevice between our seats and the ones in front, like an episode of 'Hole in the Wall'.

We manage to negotiate the area, vaguely stow our bags in whatever gaps we could find, and look around our temporary home for the next 18 hours. Seats, seats, seats, seats... Uh... Toilet? Nope. Plug socket? Initially no sign of it, but a little digging produced a plug point providing no power. What with that and the fact the vehicle isn't on nice smooth rails, but windy Indian roads littered with cyclists, slow trucks and cows, this was far from the glorious luxury of the third class sleeper trains.

It turned out there were a lot more stops on the way than we expected, as the coach also traveled to Bangalore. Unfortunately for a slightly panicked Diana, most of these weren't toilet stops. The first one was around an hour after we boarded, so not too bad but a level of uncertainty which would have been nice to avoid.

Then began the fun of trying to get some sleep. This is not a simple task in a slightly reclined seat anyway, but we also had to contend with erratic Indian driving, and my poor foresight to not bring my travel pillow in with my small bag. A few winks were had, nowhere near the recommended forty, but a solid ten perhaps, rudely interrupted by the admittedly relieving toilet break. This was simply the Indian equivalent of a truck stop, a basic cafe and toilets around the back, and we actually got here around 12am, so a perfect Indian hour as expected.

Managing to get a little more sleep, it was soon daylight and we were nearing Bangalore. Although we had no plan to get out here, it turned out we had little choice as they decided we needed to swap to another coach. Praying this was actually going to Chennai, we grab all our belongings and regain our relevant seats on the new coach. This one had less seats, but was an out right upgrade as we now had working plug points, so could actually get some form of entertainment going.

The rest of the journey, apart from the cramp and numbness, was mostly uneventful. Bangalore took about an hour to actually leave due to rush hour traffic, but once we hit the open road it was smooth sailing all the way to our destination.

When close I started working out where we needed to go. First stop, cash. We had spent most of what we had withdrawn and so needed to replenish at the closest ATM, which I could see was just up the end of a nearby road on the map. We needed at least 25k rs for the next place also, so wanted to withdraw as much as we could.

We leave coach and immediately a tuktuk driver approached us. We explain we are going to walk to the nearest ATM up the road, to which he laughs and points to the ATM not 5 steps behind us. The first convenient thing to happen to us so far. We withdraw 10k each, the maximum for one withdrawal, and attempt to withdraw again only to be declined. Okay, we figured that's because we already did 10k on this machine, no problem. We return to our new tuktuk driving friend and request he take us to the cheapest guest house close to the bus station. On a meter too, a real luxury.

He took us to a place literally a 10 minute walk from where we need to be in the morning, we go in and check the price, more than we wanted to pay but very convenient. We ask him if there is anywhere cheaper, and off we head down back streets and past what looked like good little guest houses, ending at one little place that barely looked like accommodation. Cheaper, but no rooms, so that's out. He takes us to one last place, same price as the first but much further away, so we ask to go back to the first and check in. Basic room, had a tv but it didn't work, had a.c. but didn't work, and strangely had a double and single bed in it. But it sufficed. We head out with four missions in mind. 

1. Chai.
2. Check the bus for tomorrow.
3. ATM.
4. Food.

Lovely view of the highway from our rooms balcony

We head up toward the bus station. An ATM is on the way, we stop off but it accepts neither of our cards. Not a bank we recognized anyway so we carry on, and cross the highway, a fun real life game of frogger to warm us back into city life. As we enter the bus station, it seems there are plenty of restaurants and a place to go to sleep? but no ticket counter. We walk up the station and spot three guys sat at a desk labeled information. Worth a shot.

The guys tried their best to be useful, but it turned into a huge debate. Unfortunately, our instructions were quite specific. We need to get the coach towards Pondicherry. The express bus. Taking the highway, not the east coast road. Fine, if English was widely spoken. About 6 guys came over trying to establish what the hell we wanted. Some people pointed left, some pointed right. They shouted among each other for a while and eventually they conclude the bus should be at the platform were on. At any time we fancied apparently. 5, 6, 7, is okay.

We agree between ourselves to try and get back here for 5 am. Gulp. On the way out we spot another ATM, state bank of India, which I was certain should work. It didn't. This raised some concerns.

We progress back towards our hotel and beyond, searching down more cash points. We tried atleast 5, none worked, this seemed like we weren't going to succeed. Thinking it may just be we withdrew the maximum (although we've taken out 20k each in a day before, so this didn't seem likely) we continue to look for food. Found what seemed to be an Indian version of a take out chicken place, and enjoyed Diana's last meat based meal for a while. On the way back to the hotel we found a chai shop just next door and enjoy it on the side of the road before retiring to bed (and finding out my tablet broke, unfortunately).

5 am arrives, we head to the bus station and ask a guy on the 'platform' if we were still in the right place. The bus said Pondicherry. It said express. It didn't say ECR. Seemed good. We got on, some confusion as to when we get a ticket but figured we could work that out once we were on the way, and proceeded to get on. The bus was practically empty, and blaring out a Tamil radio station to prevent an odd silence.

The bus progresses from the station. We were unable to get our bags into the overhead storage due to their size, and figured it would be easier to get off if they're on the seat next to us. The bus pulls up further along the road to it's first stop. A couple of people get on, one of whom brought an entire fruit market along with him, getting on and off the bus producing box after box after sack of various fruits and vegetables. The bus driver was in no mood to wait for this sort of game, so carried on down the road whilst the man was running along still attempting to load up the bus with various plant life. Eventually he appeared to have finished, half the front of the bus was taken up, and he took a seat.

Part of the on-bus-market-stall

At this point, another guy got on, with a small brown satchel and a official looking uniform. Turned out this was the bus conductor, and he made his way around collecting money. In broken English, he pointed at the seat next to us and gestured we'd need to pay for 3 seats if we can't get the bags onto the overhead storage. No real choice, so we pay for 3 seats on our 2.5 hour journey - 275 rs or around £3.

The bus journey was mostly uneventful and I was still shattered from a morning of waking up before 12pm, so I was drifting in and out of sleep anyway, until Diana poked me to make me aware of the following catchy selfie-related tune playing.

The bus stayed mostly empty for the whole journey. That is, up until a couple of stops when we wanted to get off, and all of a sudden a flood of people entered. Tremendous. We got a few glares from people who had to stand looking at our baggage on the seat, all we could do was shrug and say we'd paid for three. Eventually we reached the 'stop' we were after, which was actually a toll gate where the bus had to slow down to pay the toll in a place called Moratandi. We grabbed our bags and in a rush jumped off the bus. Success. Fortunately for us, the greengrocer from earlier was also getting off here, so we had plenty of time.

We took a moment to gather our thoughts and work out our next move. We were headed for a place called Sadhana Forest, a voluntary project we would be spending the next month at. We were informed that we should call them on arrival to the toll gate and people would come to collect us. So we sat down at a very convenient cafe/restaurant where the bus had stopped, ordered 2 chai's and proceeded to call the number. We were told we were in the right place, but the wrong side of the road, so we finished up our tea and crossed the highway.

We were collected with by two guys on mopeds, Rob and John, and we worked out the best way of navigating our huge bags onto the back of the tiniest motorized bikes in the world. Whilst we succeeded, it was hardly the most comfortable journey ever, and the roads are not so much roads as they are dirt paths with pits, gravel, dips and pot holes at every possible point.

But we made it, on to Sadhana forest....