Had a mix of good and bad feelings after spending 3 days painting the wall in a resort in exchange of free meals and a place to sleep.
Lucky enough, we got to make friends with the awesome cook, the three friendly kids aka the chatterboxes, two cool guys who are starting their own photography brand and an app to help grow the local music scenes, and a team of super nice workers (featuring the security guard who always put on an embarrassed but funny face).
Last but not least, allow me to brag about my 5-star resting space at Kuala Lumpur airport before the flight to India.
It’s true when they say every cloud has a silver lining. It wasn’t a completely satisfactory experience in the resort, rather disappointed to be honest. If we didn’t get to know J.C., we’d just be like any other average tourist in Pondicherry. Remember the awesome cook I mentioned one post back? That's J.C. Indeed, he’s more than a cook, but also a professional yoga trainer and our best tour guide.
He guided us along the Promenade beach for a night walk while explaining how Pondicherry was once a French colony and now a city of tourism (the city’s cleanliness explained) and a decent place for living (unlike Chennai as a city for working); we tasted the best kulfi (traditional Indian ice cream) in town and the out-of-the-world baked goods in Auroville; we had exciting motorbike rides, embracing the drizzle and wind while escaping from the police as it’s illegal to have three people on one bike; we were led into the world of meditation for inner peace and consciousness.
Thanks to J.C. the great teacher - we had morning “lecture” on Hindu’s Human Chakras, which comprises 7 main energy centres along the spine, each indicating a part of a human’s well-being. Given the power station for consciousness is situated between the brows, you find Indians wearing a red dot of turmeric called Bindi there.
We were told that Hinduism wasn’t a religion from the very start, but a way of life. It was a pity when the genuine knowledge hasn’t been passed on alongside the practice, e.g. it’s women’s duty to make drawings on the doorsteps with rice flour to feed ants, which implies kindness even to the smallest animals, but now, rice flour is generally replaced by white powder.
We were also told that Banyan tree is India's national tree - with the main tree as Hinduism, while arts and culture as the sub-branches. He brought us to his hometown, explained very detail of a small temple in one whole hour, introduced us to his family and served us with "Mama’s brand” dinner.
Had beautiful encounters with locals on the train from Pondicherry to Virudhunagar. This is Advik. His mom told me that his name means “unique”. Seeing the black dot on his forehead reminded me of a kid in Sri Lanka having the same dot which is believed to make her ugly, so evils won’t take her away. I asked if it’s the same for the Indian practice, she then wrote on my notebook: “Baby has drawn eye shadow in black and black bindi and black spot in his cheeks. This is as part of tradition to avoid all the bad views from baby (we call it as drishti)."
“Madam, take this. Curd rice, extra.”, said the two men who were sleeping on the bed below mine. They also asked me multiple times if I had had lunch and insisted paying my cup of coffee, so I gave them the HK’s special scallop-shaped $2 coins in return. They looked puzzled when I first said “I’m from Hong Kong”. It was not until I mentioned the name of Jackie Chan, and proudly announced "Bruce Lee, same school with me” (yes, he once studied in SMCC…) that they came to a sudden realisation with their high-brow Indian nods.
This “Jackie Chan/ Bruce Lee/ Kung Fu” thing works every single time in both Myanmar and India, you might wanna try that out!
Everything was new and enchanting to us during our stay in Chennai, same for the many locals who found our foreign faces special and kept requesting for selfies or feeling totally at ease to pose at my every click.
Spent a couple of hours at the Government Museum wandering in the sea of knowledge, being asked for selfies by boys of my age who later added me on Facebook (for sending back the picture) and bombarded me with 46 notifications of likes and reactions. Moral of the story: better give strangers (fake) email address instead. · Rubbish-filled beach was no longer new, but the manually powered merry-go-rounds. And remember the guy who’s gonna develop a music app? He introduced us to a high-end but free-of-charge Carnatic show. For the last picture, there shows our satisfying early dinner of jeera rice with mushroom masala. By the way, I think we’re finally getting used to the Indian nod hahaha
I'm a 20-year-old Hong Konger who enjoy meeting people from different cultures and living like locals during my travels. Currently taking Sociology as major and Entrepreneurship and Innovation as minor in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. One of my life goals is to build an Earthship out of mud and waste (aka treasures). In this little hut of utopia, I anticipate to share thoughts and ideas with other conscious individuals. Shoot me a message at emilykwokeyan@gmail.com to sign up as a guest in advance!
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