EC-Rider Travels

This morning we visited the most extraordinary place called Auroville – by its own admission…. an experimental community. It was established in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa – the spiritual companion of Sri Aurobindo. Known as ‘Mother’, her ambition was to: Create a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live…

After a delicious breakfast with Ram, looking at the spectacular wedding album of Mariam’s son to Sarah the daughter of another RBS donor, my guide Rebecca, driver Arun accompanied by Christy, the Manager of Banyan Tours arrived. Ram kindly invited them in and they nearly keeled over with excitement at being in his house and…

I felt truly sad leaving Glyngarth and saying goodbye to kind, generous Mariam. My goodness, I have had just the most amazing time and I am not sure have ever been more comfortable or so beautifully looked after. It has also been so lovely getting to know Mariam more, not just as a RBS supporter…

Another amazing and somewhat surprising day. At midday, Sandeep arrived for lunch and to take me somewhere where I could go for a ride. Just as we were leaving a bison passed the front gate which was quite a surprise, particularly for dear George the gateman. They are HUGE and George is not! So we…

After the most hysterical breakfast with Thankan relating stories of her ‘terrible’ family, I left them all to be taken by Bala to meet Thorthey. Thorthey is a member of the Toda tribe and lives in a Toda village within Ooty itself. He kindly agreed to take me on a trek to see some of…

This morning, we had a wonderful walk around Mariam‘s immaculate garden, everything with a little label written by the staff with the most fantastic spelling eg: Tabble Radieas (table radish) and Green Sugini (green zucchini, of course!). We also met the rest of her menagerie, including Melinda the goose who has her own, specially made,…

After a nice breakfast with Ram, Mariam and I bid him farewell and headed for the airport for an internal flight to Coimbatore where we were met by Bala who was to drive us the three hours to Ooty. It was a very beautiful, but unbelievably windy road, up, up, up into the hills, with…

Well it has been quite a day. Breakfast with Mariam and Ram, was a little different from the usual fruit and yoghurt, an incredibly light crispy pancakes called a dosa and various spicy sauces to dip it into. Bit of surprise for the taste buds first thing in the morning but Mariam’s girls make the…

Lovely Justinna took me to the airport, where I arrived in good time as I was a little concerned about the extra luggage I had. I had been warned how very strict Indian airlines were, so I spent some time this morning squeezing everything into my big suitcase to ensure Mary (my rather over-sized cabin…

With still more chatting to do, I met Charlie and Shona and two of their lovely boys, James and Edward, for Dim Sum in China Town. I was struggling to find them, and then turned round to see ‘Charlie Benson’ forty years ago …. morphed into Edward Benson! It was the most amazing restaurant, up…