Just to let you all know that I have arrived and am well. As it turns out I will need to be using the Ashram internet system in order to communicate, so if you want to keep up with my posts, please subscribe to this blog.
11/29
We arrived at the ashram, half a world away, and have already ran into other people from Seattle and elsewhere that we have known in association with Amma. So we are being made to feel at home.
The flight from Seattle to Dubai (14 hours) was made more tolerable by a bit more leg room in the Boeing 777, and several amenities such as hot wet towels and personal entertainment centers with hundreds of choices. We landed in Dubai at night so couldn't see much of it, but the Dubai airport was glitzy. It was like being a big shopping mall. There were even grocery style carts for carrying around your purchases. The on-board magazine for Emerits Air had an add about Dubai and its "shopping festivals." Fortunately we had a short lay over there and in another 4 hours we were in Trivandrum arriving at 3:30 AM on Thursday (having left home on Tuesday). We weren't in our taxi more than a few minutes when it all came back about driving in India. Just sit back and don't look out the front window. We saw 2 working elephants along the road, several churches, mosques and temples, a dusty green bird, and all the familiar landscape of coconut palms, backwaters, fences plastered with bright colored advertisements, people walking, riding bicycles and motor bikes, tata trucks and motor rickshaws and those old fashioned looking cars.
11/30
The ashram without Amma has much fewer people. When she arrives on Saturday all that will change. Even more people than in the past are expected. Much about the ashram is the same, but there are some changes which seem to be good and more efficient and convenient for handling more people. There are new buildings and the development of a new gathering place outside other than in front of the temple which is limited in space. They moved the juice bar there and have another canteen set up there and a coconut stand for getting the ever popular green coconut water to drink with a straw right out of the coconut.
Having arrived in Trivandrum at 3:45 AM we had a very long day of it Thursday. But we pushed through, took only an hour nap in the afternoon and managed barely to stay awake until 9:00 PM before dropping exhausted into bed and sleeping 10 hours straight. It's been a marathon!
By the time we got through immigration, got our luggage and had the long taxi ride to the ashram, we arrived in time to check in and get our room before breakfast at 9:00 AM - iddlies and sambar! Yes, we were back to south India cooking.
We took the whole day slow, getting our supplies and getting set up in our flat, which was in the same building one floor lower than when we were here 7 years ago. We look east over the backwaters, the new foot bridge to the mainland, and the groves of trees along the water's edge. This makes our room cooler as we do not get the sun in the afternoon as they do n the west side that looks out on the Indian Ocean. In the last six months a new phenomenon has occurred. Each even at dusk massive flocks of birds of different kinds descend on the ashram to roost in these trees - right outside our window.
All for now, time is up. More later.
11/29
We arrived at the ashram, half a world away, and have already ran into other people from Seattle and elsewhere that we have known in association with Amma. So we are being made to feel at home.
The flight from Seattle to Dubai (14 hours) was made more tolerable by a bit more leg room in the Boeing 777, and several amenities such as hot wet towels and personal entertainment centers with hundreds of choices. We landed in Dubai at night so couldn't see much of it, but the Dubai airport was glitzy. It was like being a big shopping mall. There were even grocery style carts for carrying around your purchases. The on-board magazine for Emerits Air had an add about Dubai and its "shopping festivals." Fortunately we had a short lay over there and in another 4 hours we were in Trivandrum arriving at 3:30 AM on Thursday (having left home on Tuesday). We weren't in our taxi more than a few minutes when it all came back about driving in India. Just sit back and don't look out the front window. We saw 2 working elephants along the road, several churches, mosques and temples, a dusty green bird, and all the familiar landscape of coconut palms, backwaters, fences plastered with bright colored advertisements, people walking, riding bicycles and motor bikes, tata trucks and motor rickshaws and those old fashioned looking cars.
11/30
The ashram without Amma has much fewer people. When she arrives on Saturday all that will change. Even more people than in the past are expected. Much about the ashram is the same, but there are some changes which seem to be good and more efficient and convenient for handling more people. There are new buildings and the development of a new gathering place outside other than in front of the temple which is limited in space. They moved the juice bar there and have another canteen set up there and a coconut stand for getting the ever popular green coconut water to drink with a straw right out of the coconut.
Having arrived in Trivandrum at 3:45 AM we had a very long day of it Thursday. But we pushed through, took only an hour nap in the afternoon and managed barely to stay awake until 9:00 PM before dropping exhausted into bed and sleeping 10 hours straight. It's been a marathon!
By the time we got through immigration, got our luggage and had the long taxi ride to the ashram, we arrived in time to check in and get our room before breakfast at 9:00 AM - iddlies and sambar! Yes, we were back to south India cooking.
We took the whole day slow, getting our supplies and getting set up in our flat, which was in the same building one floor lower than when we were here 7 years ago. We look east over the backwaters, the new foot bridge to the mainland, and the groves of trees along the water's edge. This makes our room cooler as we do not get the sun in the afternoon as they do n the west side that looks out on the Indian Ocean. In the last six months a new phenomenon has occurred. Each even at dusk massive flocks of birds of different kinds descend on the ashram to roost in these trees - right outside our window.
All for now, time is up. More later.
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