Tamil Nadu to Karnataka

Namaskara from Mysore!

Since leaving Kanchipuram last week I've had a great few days in Pondicherry, Bangalore and Mysore, and today I've arrived at the Raleigh field base in a village called Jayapura, about half an hour drive from Mysore.

I was sad to say goodbye to my host family in Kanchipuram but looking forward to a few days of being a tourist.  After surviving a hair-raising bus ride I was relieved to get to Pondicherry where I had a few days enjoying the good food and wandering round the old French colonial quarter and along the sea-front. I even managed to watch a bit of the Wimbledon final with a nice cold Kingfisher in a lovely air conditioned cafe. On Monday I made a trip to Auroville, a few km outside of Pondi, which is an interesting settlement founded in the 1960s to be a universal town for people from all over the world 'to live in peace and progressive harmony'. It's quite a unique place, but as a tourist it's only really possible to go to the visitors centre and get a view of the 'Matrimandir' which sits at the very centre of Auroville.

A beautiful example of 'rangoli' which I came across in Pondicherry, traditionally made from rice flour and drawn at the entrance to every house (most are not nearly this elaborate)

One of the temples in Pondi has a resident elephant, unfortunately when I was there she was on sick leave!

The Matrimandir at the centre of Auroville. The very centre has a large crystal which catches the light from the very top of the dome. Residents of Auroville can use the Matrimandir for 'concentration'/meditation. The whole set up of Auroville is non-religious but strives for 'divine conciousness'

After a lovely few days in Pondicherry I headed for Bangalore, where I met up with Laura, another Raleigh volunteer. We spent a couple of nights in Bangalore and did some sight-seeing, including the incredible flower market which was so beautiful. We also went to see a Bollywood film which was an interesting experience - all in Hindi so we only guessed at the plot-line, but caught on early on that it was a comedy, all the other cinema-goers found it hilarious! It had some great singing and dancing though, and we're still finding ourselves spontaneously singing the theme-tune days later (if anyone's interested, it was Bol Bachchan, which I think is also showing in the UK, you might have more luck than we did with sub-titles!)

On Thursday we got the bus to Mysore and treated ourselves to a nice hotel as a final bit of luxury before starting with Raleigh. We had a good day in Mysore yesterday visiting the Palace and the market, but most interesting was a trip to the Government silk factory. Unfortunately no cameras were permitted, but it was an incredible sight, and we could walk round all of it seeing how the silk fibers are twisted, dyed and woven. We could go right up to all the machinery, something health and safety in the UK would never allow! The workers were very friendly and happy to explain what they were doing, and we had a good chat to one or two when they shared some chai with us on their tea-break.

Bangalore flower market

Part of Bangalore fruit & veg market

Mysore Palace

Devaraja Market in Mysore

Flowers at the market in Mysore

Enjoying a South Indian thali!

Now we're at the Raleigh field base, so the next stage of my adventure begins! We've got 2 weeks training based here, with a trek/camping and visit to project sites within that time, before the Venturers (the young people taking part in Raleigh) arrive. It sounds like it will be a busy time but hopefully good fun, and in a few days I should find out which project I'm going to be managing. The surroundings are more comfortable than I was expecting, and I even have a proper mattress and bed, albeit in a tent, but the facilities here are good.

So from now, your best bet for updates will be from the Raleigh blog, which Mitch, our communications manager will be updating regularly - www.raleighindia.blogspot.com  - enjoy!