March 6, 2008 – Kerala, India
Amritapuri Ashram

Yesterday a wannabe exotic resort on a lake, today an Ashram.
The hostel we’d booked for yesterday evening sounded good. It was a little expensive, Rs 399 (approx. $12) per person rather than the half-price or less that some of the other hostels charge. We were in a rush in Hosur at the time though, and just wanted to have something booked for when we arrived, so book it we did.
In order to get there, the autorickshaw driver was to take you to a certain Jetty, not the typical boat jetty. Of course, the rickshaw driver had no idea what we were talking about. Then, when he finally agreed to drive us (after several conflicting directions from helpful nearby resort owners), we stopped 2 minutes into the trip to get gas, for which the driver wanted some money right off the bat. This is highly unusual, or at least we’d never experienced it before, so we were a little worried. When we were dropped off in front of a tiny ‘grocery’ store we were even more confused. The rickshaw driver, fortunately for us, was kinder than our paranoia had led us to believe (everyone tells you not to trust rickshaw drivers) and called the phone number we had listed for the resort. Apparently they were sending a boat to pick us up.
Sure enough, half an hour or so later, this boat (the word pirogue comes to mind but I don’t know if that’s exactly what it was – a sort of large wooden canoe (with a little outboard motor, no pole driving!) comes to take us to the hostel. 10 minutes boat ride along the backwaters later, we see what looks like an exotic resort sitting in the middle of a landspit. Pretty sweet hostel.
As we step off the boat, we are greeted by the manager. We are also immediately supplied with complimentary welcome drinks - a definite hostel first. Evy’s drink has a fly drowning in it, but mine is quite tasty. What the drinks don’t do is hide the fact that we appear to be the only current guests at this hostel. The manager then tries to tell us that we have to pay more than what we’d reserved through the hostelworld site, because apparently hostelworld had the wrong prices. We figured that wasn’t really our problem but his, and told him so. Ev & Mad with attitude. It’s a lot easier to stand up for your rightful room price when it’s still daylight out and you could always go somewhere else.
Our stay at the ‘resort’ is somewhat marred by this immediate implied favour of having the old room prices, but barring that it’s pretty neat. The hostel has a beautiful location, situated as it is right between the backwaters and the rice paddies. We’re particularly pleased we didn’t splurge for a double-room, as we have the whole 8-bed dorm to ourselves. We decide that that’s really their biggest problem – they’re trying to attract a hostel crowd, but with prices above typical hostel prices your hostel crowd isn’t interested unless the room quality is higher. Yes it’s a superb location with loads of activity opportunities, but in Evy’s and my case, for instance, we’d far rather pay half-price and have our own room than pay twice what we normally pay for a private room in order to sleep in an 8-bed dorm - simple backpacker thinking. Either way, we’ve dealt with cost issues & now bring our backpacks up to settle in.
In the early evening the manager’s assistant, a friendly guy of about 16 or 17, comes by our room and asks us what we’d like for dinner. We give him an order, he tells us he’ll be gone for the next 20 minutes or so. Fine. We go out for a sunset walk in the meantime, and see the assistant on the boat that brought us, heading presumably to a grocery shack on shore for our dinner ingredients. More surprising is the fact that it appears every other staff member (all 5 or so of them, including the manager) is also on the boat. Sure enough, we’ve been left entirely alone but for one security guard at this resort/hotel. How weird.
20 minutes ends up being an hour or more, but we don’t mind, occupied as we are with holding the naked baby that was thrust in our arms when we went on a walk past the little village huts lining the spit. Yes, as we were casually walking along the waterside we walked by various families, and were led to the naked baby by a small boy who wanted his family photo taken. We took a photo of them all, had the naked baby thrust without warning into each of our hands (for good luck for the baby or in order to have photos of Caucasian girls holding the baby?!) and all will hopefully be mailed to them. It would’ve been funny if it hadn’t been sort of sad as well – we asked them to help us write out their address but all we ended up getting was ‘Laiju. Laiju’s Bhavan. Kerala’. Laiju being the father. Bhavan meaning house/haven. Kerala being the state. Laiju’s House in Kerala state. Hmmmmm. Maybe we can send it care of the resort/hostel.

That was yesterday. Now we are in an Ashram. Rather than the quiet, remote country place I’d been expecting, my first impression was that we’d stepped into a complex in the Eastern Bloc, perhaps the Czech Republic. It’s a large cement set of apartment buildings, a pale colour of pink that is now fading underneath all of the bird poop & dirt that has accumulated over the years. We’re on the uppermost floor, which means a fabulous view. It also means we’re hosts to some of the weirdest hornet nests I’ve ever seen. They kind of look like massive upside down tea-cosies hanging on the ceiling, entirely covered with wasps. Very odd. The largest one is of course directly outside of our window, so big we didn’t even notice it at first, just assumed the upper half of the window was blocked. Then we looked more closely… We’re not allowed to take photos in the Ashram, but I’ve decided that that rule pertains only to the Ashram itself, not the view, so I took one of that. I may extend my exception to include the hornet nests, just ‘cause they’re so weird looking.
I realize a lot of people look up to this woman, Amma, but so far I’m rather unimpressed. I far preferred Dr.George’s quiet power behind Shanti Bhavan and all the other George Foundation programmes, compared with Amma’s face plastered over almost every available surface. Maybe it’s because I’m not really a ‘huggy’ person, and she’s built her foundation on giving people consoling hugs. I’m obviously just not grasping whatever it is that draws people to her. Maybe if I were to actually meet her I’d change my mind. She’s not here at the moment though, so the telling day will have to wait. Until then, I’ll content myself with feeling disgusted by the overt feeling of attempted deification going on, what with the ridiculous quantity of pictures of Amma set in ‘god-like’ poses (arms uplifted by a waterfall, in a large green pasture), often with a whitish halo around her, and plastered absolutely everywhere.