Balmy Baba

Next on our agenda was a visit to the beautiful mountain town of KodaiKanal. This small village is known as being one of the most popular holiday spots for Indians at this time of year - as its at an altitude of 2400metres, meaning its a LOT cooler than the rest of the south during these hot months before the monsoon. In addition to that, its the holiday Ashram for Sai Baba - the most contriversial of Guru's in India. His Afro headed picture is everywhere in India, on rickshaws, on peoples houses, computers and shopping bags. He is meant to be another living God - the embodyment of good. He is also very contriversial - he is rumoured to be gay (a very very taboo thing in India) to have links with the Tamil Tigers fighting in Sri Lanka (he gives them lots of money for arms, and in return he gets a state of the art wheelchair and an armoured car from them...) and is reputed to make miracles happen - like making rolex watches appear in thin air (these are then gifted to his richer benefactors) his "miracle skills" could be helped by the fact that his father was a stage magician. In addition to that, Sai Baba has recently survived several attacks on his life- one of which is referred to as "the bedroom bloodbath" where several young men...who were in Sai Baba's bedroom....were killed by intruders...and Sai emerged unscathed.

All this exciting rumour made Nele and I really want to go and see what all the fuss was about. We had an excruciating overnight journey from Cochin to Kodaikanal, and then were dumped into a crap hostel with a beautiful view of the hills. After a day in recovery, we decided to attend Sai Baba's morning Darshan. Unlike Amma, Sai doesnt DO anything in the Darshan - mearly gets wheeled into view and around the crowd. You are certainly not allowed to touch him, or even get up off the floor (you have to be cross legged all the time) The women have to have ALL SKIN except the face covered (even hands and feet, which have to be covered by a shawl). Nele and I sat for 4 hours waiting in the crowd, and finally he came out. We were looking forward to some tricks or even something, anything, happening. But no. He just got wheeled along the balcony by his 5 good looking young male attendents, and then he dissapeared back into his house. His devotees got all worked up, expecially the wierdy westerners, who all were crying and being wally's, but Nele and I felt absolutely nada, except the pain in our asses (it was a hard floor!)

I think we are oblivious to all this religious ferver. Anyway, Nele said "never again will you get me going to an Ashram!" and I tend to agree with her Im afraid! All mental...

After Kodai, we headed down again to Madurai, and then onwards to Pondicherry in an excruciating local bus and then taxi combo (we were praying to Amma, Sai, God, Buddha, Krishna and anyone else who would listen the whole way - the traffic was terrifying!)

Pondicherry is where we are now - the Paris of India. Its a very wierd place, as its JUST like Paris. Very beautiful and peaceful - so a nice place to recover till the next leg of the journey -tomorrow off to Bangalore and then onto a train to Delhi - so Im pretty much constantly travelling for the next 5 days....that should be fun.....Also, I leave Nele in Bangalore as she is staying South for a couple of weeks with her new lover. Ill meet her again in Calcutta just before we fly to Thailand on 31st.