Nicely arrived at Fortkochin Beachinn 5:30 pm at the Tuesday I left the ashram, as I allready told you it was a pleasant surprise. But I arrived after a long trip by bus, bus and a rickshaw. And here is how it went.
After 3 hours drive, I got thrown of the bus at a highroad, by the sidewalk, well, sidewalks hmmm, not many in India, but at the side of the road , because they said I was where I wantet to be, but how, here was a big street, at lot of shops at the other side, a small café though at my side, and I entered to have a cup of coffee, that was nice. But how did I go on, I didn´t know how far we were from Kochin, and I didn´t know how to reach it. I walked around to find a busstation as they told me they had, but couldn´t find it, there was nothing, and nobody at this area wanted or to speak English, I felt a little lost at that time, I must confess. But in the meantime I figured out, that when they said the busstation, it was an invisible busstop, just a few meters behind me.. I had to take the bus and so I did, we crossed 3 bridges and then we stopped at a city with a roundabout and 4 streets surrounded it, these streets was full of small and big shops, a very busy city with a real busstop, now it looked a lot more like a real busstation.
Well, now I realized my phone was dead, Ohh come on, that is so much me.. not first time I have done that, and it´s always when I need it most, and I did now, cause I couldn´t remember the name of my hotel, so I couldn´t go before, I had it charged, and I seems like this place wasn´t interested in helping me, cause no matter where I asked, they didn´t couldn´t help me.. Then I went to a small streetshop with magazines, and he was so kind to charge my phone a little so I could find the address, and off I went with the next rickshaw there stopped and yeald “Taxi Ma´m? “
5 km later we stopped in front of Kochin Beachinn and I met the most wonderful people there, and the energy in this Fort Kochin was just what I needed after three nights in Amritapuri Ashram and a long warm bustrip. Yes this was how I landed in this beautiful city Fortkochin.
This city became very hard to leave again. Here is so much history, four cultures Portugise, Dutch,English and India, which makes the citizens large for turists,cause here already lives people from all countries and some of them are having business like cafeés, European clothes and accessories. The only thing I think is a little sad here, is that I can´t go into the ocean, only very early in the morning, cause the Indians don´t like us to bathe in our swimwear, and especially not women. But they are more tolerant about it here, than in the rest of Kerala.
Cause to the history of this city, I decided to play tourist for a day at paid for a roundtrip in a rickshaw. I was then seeing a lot of interest things as museums, the potugise/Catolic church, The Dutch church, The buddhi temple and and the laudry of the city. They still wash clothes by hands and not in mashines and here they was all linen from all the hotels, after washing they hang it dry, by using the clothesline and no clamps. I was also in antique stores, where they real want to sell us everything nice and to send it home for us. I was shown the Chinese fishing area and at last I was in the theater to watch a peace of history. I was a long day at 8 hours with a lot of insights, so I was tired and went early to bed.
Two days after that I went Backwaters, it is very populare, and I wanted it real much, because it was a bit cooler backwaters than in town, and I really enjoyed it a lot.
Another day I was meeting af friend from my own city, she and her boyfriend had just arrived same day as me, cause they decided to give birth to their expecting baby in an birthvillage there only uses ecological and natural methods. It seems to be a very proffessionel place with professional doctors. So this is also something you can get in India.
Now the time had come for me to search for more academies for ayurvedic training for a foreing student as me. At Amritapuri Asram College I didn´t wanted to study, so I had looked up 3 more academies in northern Kerala.
Først I went to Indukki (Idiki), which I got told was a very nice place to study, but there I could only study for one month and it was in the mountains, very high up, at the end at the top I believe, so I was so happy to have Sajeer as a taxidriver (whom has been driving in Dubai for 13 years and just returned to India at Christmas time, cause he was missing his family too much).
He showed that he was a very good driver in the mountains, even at the most impossible and destroyed roads, he was driving very safely. At the end of the road, far up there, after having been driving through a lot of small cities, we found this amazing looking place.
Now I was ment to stay there for some days, but after having seen the roads I didn´t wanted anybody else to drive me down from there, so I asked Sajeer to stay and wait for me while I was talking to the leader of the academy.
This academy didn´t seem very professional at all, and the studies was only for one month and I couldn´t get any papers about what I was going to learn, he only told me and for that they were charing too many money, so cause to my intuition and af ter a long talk with Sajeer, I decided to say thank you, but NO thanks.
So back I was in <Kochin same evening after a long drive downhill in thunder weather .
Next day we ent to another place, a place I had looked up before I went from home, not very far from Fort Kochin and this place looked very proff. and they had everything I wanted to study and some more. I got a lot of papers and every course had a price, so no confusing about how much I was going to pay, and no one would get it cheaper, and they could answer all my questions.. So there I am going to start in july 2018.
After having seen the college, Sajeer took me to some waterfalls, ohhh my, it was so beautiful. But as in many other place where I was going , here was also people starring at me, just because I was white (many of them had never seen a white person before. So here was these two small girls coming at me, asking me my good name and where I was from, and they wouldn´t let me off, they kept running after me, so I decided to ask for their names, and then we took some pictures, I took of them and their family took pictures of them and me together.
It was incredible hot a the waterfalls and I was soaking wet of sweat, so when it began to thunder an rain, it felt just so nice and cooled it all of.
Sajeer has now become not only a good driver, but also a very nice friend, and he has been a very good help at the academy talking to the doctor, this support has been giving me a better overview
Cause it is not always easy to understand people here, they are speaking mahajalam English nd two ears are better than one.
To meet new people, has always been a part of my life, and some of them are going to be my friends, some are just walking by and say hello, others will stay for shorter or longer time.. But I am sure that we don´t meet them for no reason, everyone we meet has something to share or to teach us, it might be small or big things, but we won´t meet anybody for no reason. I strongly believe in that.
Back in Fortkochin, I stayed and enjoyed time together with Maria Therese and her boyfriend Jens for some more days and made the last arrangements for studying at KAL.
Fortkochin, this is going to be a city I will never forget, cause it is no less than amazing, and happily me, I am now going to study nearby it in July – November. But I really hope it is going to be just a little less hot, cause it is very hot, and the humidity is so high. So If you want to go to Fortkochin, my advice to you would be to do it in the season.
On the ninth day I took a plane for Chennai, I wanted to go and find out what Auroville would have of interesting things. Auroville is a community nearby Pondicherry, this area is huge and only 5 km away from the city. It’s a gathering of people from all around the world, at lot of them came in the end of 1960´s and the beginning of 1970´s. They came to a dessert and the only thing standing there was a huge banyan tree, an old woman had saved from destruction, this woman they now call the Mother of Auroville. There are still people coming there from all around the world to settle down and live there. These first people started slowly to build a village, and for some years ago they also was building this Mantri Mandir.
All this place have a wonderful energy, it´s in the woods, pathes everywhere and a lot of guesthouses. This huge Mantri Mandir seems to be made out of gold, but they only used 15 kg. gold for that, the rest is made of stone, inside its all white and so beautiful, I could sit there and meditate for hours, but we only got 15 minutes .
In this village they sing chants and are having worksshops around, they have schools and kindergarten, they are unique and I wouldn´t mind being living there.
Three night in auroville was what I got, cause I had to leave a day early due to my ticket out of Tamil Nadu for Goa.
In Goa I just had one night before I was off for spain, so I went to Shanti´s my friends hotel Lámore in Ashweem Beach, where I also saw my friends from Mandrem. I was a pleasure to say goodbye to the beaches and the sunsets in Goa, and I had a lot of swimming in the ocean, so nice, I loved it.
For now I will say, that I am going to miss all my friends in India, mango, watermelon, ananas, papaya and bananas every morning so much while I am home I Europe, but I will not miss the noise of the tuc-tucs. But due to my restlessness, cause I am not working 9-5 as I am used to, then I will love to walk every day for 4-6 weeks at the camino before I am going to Denmark.
This was all from my adventures in India for this time, I have been making so many new friends in this period, and I am so happy about that, you have all been so nice and helpful to me, thank you ❤ I am now on my way to Spain to walk the Camino, where I will be walking around 800 km.
But even though India will be left for Spain, then I will still be blogging and I will be happy if you want to read it.. I will be back in India mid july 2018.
If you want to do that, please make sure to read the next chapter of “SOAP”
In love and light, Namasté 🙏 ❤
Lilly Acacia