India 2004, 1 month in southeast India, Tamil Nadu region (cities visited: Auroville, Pondicherry, Chennai=Madras). CLICK ON PHOTOS TO SEE FULL SIZE

I went mainly for health, to get ancient 'ayurvedic' treatment (made famous in the west by Deepak Chopra and older than Traditional Chineese Medicine):

I didn't participate in this, but it gives a feel of the place:

Overview of most of the pics:

Me and Vast (formerly known as Kingsley and also married to Swedish girl Theresa, who is the local teacher/guru), here he had - for fun I guess - put a golden star in my forehead:

Me walking in the hall, door to my room back left, one of my ayurvedic doctors:

Ramesh helped out sometimes:

First 2,5 weeks I got 2 hours treatment every morning (mainly massage w warm oil)as ordained by ayurveda doctors:

Then Shiva helped me shower (my request for female help was inappropiate as Hindus are against anypotential sexual tension):

Last 1,5 weeks I negotiated an additional hours afternoon  treatment + a few personal yoga instructions by Saji the yoga teacher:

Food at the Vast center was rice, rice more rice and some boiled vegetables and bananas (here some breakfast and dinners:

Photos of the vast center where I stayed:

To escape I always used this company:

Auroville was the non-drug international hippie-type community close to the vast center:

Repos Beach my favorite escape:

Last dinner w Jo:

Pondicherry - an old French colony w ca 270.000 regular inhabitants, somewhat of a summer town. Dominated by the Sri Arabindou ashram.

Pondis botanical gardens (only green plants)

Outside ashram - girls from vast center

Dinner w center people at a fairly nice place

Chennai - ca 7,8 million inhabitants. When it had rained tropically non-stop for 5 days Jo (a UK girl I met in Pondicherry) and I escaped for two days:

We stayed at Chennais very best hotel (best of the best, more 5star than the others according to Lonely Planet and rough guide (I negotiated the price to USD 160 incl tax for a double room w separate beds):

Ahhh for a lovely dinner after arriving (after the 3hour cab ride from Auroville) to the hotel in the afternoon. Before pic was taken I had negotiated the room price and we had checked in:

For InRupees 300 I got a haircut and nice shave at the uberhotel:

"RUPEES!" - Jo and I were asked to summarize our Indian experience in one word; many poor people and few real jobs in Tamil Nadu makes the locals way more focused on money than your westerner. They have made fooling everyone not from Tamil Nadu into their national sport. But I had the priviledge to meet a few fantastic people,  Saji the yoga teacher is my favorite (but he is from Kerala, another province where Ammaji my Indian guru also lives...) Instead of lying, I would like it better if they did as in China and up front charged a higher "western" price. All in all however, it was a trip well worth taking!