My India trek Nov 1973 - Feb 1974     -     John van der Woude  www.jvanderw.nl    introduction

Pondicherry

^ Pondicherry's Indian Coffee House was a meeting point for Western travellers like me.

^ Homeless people slept under overhangs like this; in summer the inhabitants would also sleep outside, but then on the roof terraces.

Pondy's boulevard. Army clothes being dried.

Fishermen's huts, rafts end nets on the beach near Pondy.

^ Butcher's shop. In South India, a normal restaurant always was a vegetarian restaurant. If it was not, there was a special sign 'Non-vegetarian restaurant' above the entrance. I almost only ate vegetarian, and I loved the food.

The Aurobindo ashram owned several monumental buildings from the French era.

^ Auroville being built outside Pondy, as part of the Aurobindo ashram.

At Kottakarai, a hamlet near Auroville.

Sugar cane processing.

^ Pressed cane remains were used as fuel for preparing the sugar.

^The sugar after cooling.