Auroville - A New World

Its been a long time dream to start a travel blog and i have been waited for so long years to start  the Travel Blog.  To start with, i thought of starting the New Journey from a place that different from other places in the World. I can this place is a new world. Its Auroville. I heard about this place few years before. Everyone said its a different place where people from different countries live here. its a different place. That made me curious about this place. I wanted to visit this. So i asked lot of people to join. I didn't get any positive response from anyone. People said Nothing is there to visit. Only thing is people from different countries will be there. Days passed like this. But the curiosity to visit Auroville was never reduced. i wanted to visit this place once in my life time. 

I become busy with my studies professional life and years passed. Started my athletic life back and did a Half Iron Triathlon, started doing Trekking and Social events by Chennai Trekking Club. At one point, everything become a routine to me. Life was boring, I wanted to start something new. Something that fills the heart. Something i can enjoy and i can learn from it. So i thought of Travelling the Cities in India. Travelling is the Cure for everything. You can enjoy it, experience it, feel it, meet new people, learn about new culture. Altogether it will be a new experience. 

I decided to start my adventure Journey from the place i wanted to visit for a long time - Auroville. I have visited few blogs about the Auroville trip to get know about the places to visit and the hotels that are famous. Got New Suggestions from the bloggers. With that little research, i had a list of places to visit and a list of restaurants to taste the food of Auroville. 

Sun Rise @ECR

I Started the Journey on a fine Saturday at 4 AM from Chennai.  First I drove to Pondicherry beach. Had a Walk in the beach and rested some time. Then i drove to Auroville Bakery, one of the best restaurant in the City. You have lot of options to fulfill you Appetite. They have typical South Indian foods to international foods. I had Hibiscus Syrup and a Bread Combo(6 varieties of breads). It was a cool pleasant place to have the breakfast. 

Auroville Bakery

Breads Combo

Hibiscus Syrup

From there then i moved to the Rusty Rabbit Hotel which i booked via an Phone App. I went for the budget price. It was a small hotel with a pleasant atmosphere. The owner of the hotel is Vino and he is a very nice person. He gave information about lot of places to visit in and around Auroville and Pondicherry. He Builds a wrap over with every person stays in his hotel and he make sure everyone is comfortable in his place. 

Rusty Rabbit Dorm

Wall Painting

The First place Visited is the Matrimandir. I didn't booked any appointment to visit inside the Matrimandir. We need to apply minimum of 2 days earlier to visit inside the Globe. The first thing is you have to watch the Video about the Auroville. They will telecast the video in different languages.  You will get to know about the vision of creating this experimental city. From the main entrance we have to walk around 2 Kms to visit the Globe (The globe is located in the Center point of Auroville). The path is fully covered with tree shades and you can see many inspirational quotes in the stones. They have a cafeteria place. Hope they have started recently as many people have started visiting Auroville. There I had this Nannari Syrup. It was Awsome,. They made the Syrup with the real Nannari Root not with essense. Don't miss to taste the nanari Syrup. 

Nannari Syrup

 The Next place on the list is Sadhana Forest. it was located little outer to the Auroville circle. It was a 20 minutes travel to reach the forest. They created this forest from nothing. It was an 80 acres land which turned into forest in 15 years. Everything was done by the Volunteers. You can get more info about Sadhana forest in here. One of the Volunteer explained me about what they are doing in  the forest. Anyone can book in advance and stay in the forest for couple of days. For Indians it is minimum 2 days and for foreigners it is 2 weeks. We have to pay INR 500/day for Stay. When you are staying, you have to volunteer to do some job. You can help in Cooking, Forest Maintenance, etc., I can see lot of people from other countries staying there for a long period of time. He also mentioned they were telecasting a video on every Friday evening at 4 PM. The Video is about the history and the vision about the Sadhana forest and dinner will be provided at free of cost to the people come to view the Video. If you want to stay there in the Night, you have to Pay for it. The season to stay there is August to February.  I had a good time over there. He showed me the huts, the kitchen and roamed a little around the forest. 

Next place is the Solar Kitchen (Lunch Time) . Read a little about the Restaurant in Auroville while surfing in Internet. So I wanted to have the lunch at there. I didn't know that is a community restaurant where we cannot pay in Cash. We can only able to pay with the Auroville Card. When i went there, me and another one guy were in the same situation. The cashier helped to find a person having the Auroville card and we payed to that gentleman. The Food was damm good and so delicious. Everything was 100% Organic. You can feel the difference in the taste. It was a very decent buffet for INR 110. There i meet a new friend Deeraj. He is travelling from Hyderabad. This is the Second visit for him to Auroville. He is a nice person and a traveler. He traveled to many cities in India. He is the Companion for me rest of the trip.

With Deeraj

After the lunch we went to Town hall and Savitri Bhavan. In the Savitri Bhavan, they have portrayed the life of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It have the reading room and Audio Visual Collection for Spiritual education. 

Auroville plan

Toen Hall

Sastri Bhavan

Auditorium

From there we went to the Sound Garden. This is the place i loved the most in Auroville. The Setup was like a Park and they have the Musical Instruments there. You can play any of the instruments and enjoy the music. That was really cool and Awesome. I will share some of the Musical instruments and the recorded Sounds. They too have a Musical Therapy treatment in which it helps in stress relief. 

From there we went to Auroville beach where we had a walk and stayed for some time. After that me and Deeraj decided to have the Dinner in Pondicherry, so we drive to Promenade Beach, Its always cool to spend time in beach just watching the Waves. It  soothes your mind where you can forget about your worries in the world for some time and it will give you a little peace. I did a small purchase for my loved one and we went to GMT Ice cream parlor. To the Surprise all the ice creams were made from real fruits. You can feel the real taste of fruits in the Ice Cream. Then we had the Dinner at the Auro Pizza (Wood fire Pizza), One of the best pizzas I ever had. Domions/Pizza hut/Papa Jones can never come near to the taste of Auro Pizza. The dough, Vegetables and Chicken was fresh that made the taste of pizza soo goood. Never forget to have pizza in Auro Pizza when u Visit Pondicherry. 

Auroville Beach

Ice Cream made from Real Fruits

Auro Pizza

Then we returned to our hotels. Had a good Sleep after the busy day. Next day Morning returned to Chennai with lot of Memories and with a New good Experience. I went there with a heavy heart and returned Chennai with a Light Heart. 

Places to Visit Auroville:

1. Matrimandir

2. Sound Gerden

3. Sadhana Forest

4. Town hall

5. Sastri Bhavan

6. Auroville Beach

7. Buddha Garden

Places to have Food:

1. Auroville Bakery

2. Solar Kitchen

3. Auro Pizza (Pondy)

Couldn't visit few places this time due to lack of time. Will visit once again in Season Time and Will share the experience. keep Following the blog to read about the Next trips.