Puducherry (pondicherry)

Hello!
It's been a few days now since we wrote anything, after I got excited about being able to put up pictures and just posted them for a while!
So we have been in Ponducherry now for a few days (3 nights, so it must be four days then). We have visited most of the places in our guidebook that are features of the city, including the botanical gardens today (like a ghost town; old tracks from a now non-existent train that would have taken you round the gardens; forgotten glasshouses full of neglected foliage; looks like the French were the last to give a caring hand to some of those plants! and the homeless have understandably taken over some of the shelters there, too).
Because the place used to be a colony of the French, there are some streets in Ponducherry that look distinctly European with trees lining them and pretty balconied houses lining the roads. There is also a canal (not Suez, but sewage!) that looks nice but smells bad, and government buildings with beautifully kept grounds and gleaming white (! - as opposed to the usual grime-smeared ones) walls. There is also a promenade along the beach front with a large statue of Gandhi. Anyhow, you can find out these things from any guide book, I'm sure.
Yesterday we decided to hire a scooter and scoot out to Auroville, 10ks north (and still on the coast) of Ponducherry. It took about half an hour at 30-40ks per hour and dodging all the traffic, but was safe enough, and great to have our own wheels. Only 150 Rupees a day, and 200 Rupees to fill her up! (there are approx 3 NZ dollars in a hundred rupees, so you can figure out that it is super-cheap!)
Auroville is an ideal city planned and visioned by the Sri Aurobindo Society which is a spiritual group guided by the teachings and principles of Sri Aurobindo and 'The Mother' (for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville and www.auroville.org) incorporating self-sufficient ecological living with research in spiritual and physical things in order to live with divine consciousness. (well, that is my version of what they said, but you can read more about it yourself, if you're interested). We spent the whole day there at the visitors centre, and it was quite interesting, though maybe quite idealistic. Anyhow, visitors aren't allowed actually into the 'city' (I think around 2,000 people live there; an international population of just over half of the total, with the rest Indian), so we don't know that much about it from visiting for just one day at the visitors centre, so we are going to ask them if we can stay and work with the community for a week or so. (Jo is emailing now...)
We were feeling a bit sick of just staying in guest houses and feeling like tourists too much, so if we could have this experience, it would be good. It would hopefully be not just an insight into this place, but also more involvement with our new surroundings/culture and hope to open up new doors. We'll hopefully get to know some people on a less superficial level!