We stayed a night in a “village” called Karunagappally, it was the closest to the ashram we could find a decent accommodation in. When we arrived, noone was there and the house seemed abandoned. We had made a booking on booking.com so V gave them a call – number is no longer valid.

Convinced this place is no longer rented out we started browsing for another place. Then V found another number on top of the building that worked and some helpful neighbours until 2 men showed up shortly after to let us in. From the inside it seemed equally abandoned, cleanliness wasn’t amazing but we had everything we needed. There was a kitchen so we bought a watermelon. Turned out there were no knives nor any other cutlery in the kitchen so eating it was not a pretty sight. 🙈

In the morning at 7:30am we caught a rickshaw for 250 rupees to the Amritapuri Ashram. The road was very nice – good concrete, winding through the villages and forest and by the sea.

Upon arrival we registered ourselves in the internationals office and got day visitors passes. We realised that staying at the ashram would have probably been a good idea. But I thought it was only for devotees and wanted to ensure we don’t need to clean any toilets or slave in the kitchen for a night on a bunkbed.

We then entered the Ashram, browsed around, had breakfast, got our tokens for the darshana and sat down. The ceremony then moved from the big hall to the temple. So we moved, had to deposit all our stuff including phones, take off shoes and then sat for hours waiting for our turn. Before Amma’s arrival a woman asked for our help to carry heavy boxes and tables, so we gave our contribution.

The queuing system didn’t really work for foreigners – the lady in charge asked us when we had to leave and made us wait for hours. Until at the end we had to press her 3 times that we really have to leave, only then did she put us in the queue for the hugs.

We got hugged by Amma, went for lunch on the premises for the cheap food and hope that we can talk to some of the white people living here. Success!

We left the premises around 3pm with a local bus back to our “village” and another bus towards Varkala. Noone asked for any donations, didn’t see any boxes for it either.

Watch the vlog of our experience and thoughts on the Ashram life here:

For more information about Amma,

here’s a wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mata_Amritanandamayi

and her website: https://amma.org

Why did we visit Amma?
I saw a French movie called ‘Un plus Une’, recommended to me by my dear colleague Valerie. It was a great movie and they visited Amma there. So I figured that getting a hug is harmless and a very nice idea to spread the world with. Really wanted to test out those special hugs.