A big namaste from India

RE: A big namaste from India

My hugs, Sunanda.

This constant increase in tourism everywhere worldwide (to out of the way places)is so awful to me, though I realise I might be counted amongst the same of course.

It used to be that it was a pilgrimage, so you were duty-bound to go overland. Now people fly in, in a few hours. [&:]People used to look down on people who flew to places, really!

In 1990 in Crete I found a one and a half mile beach with only 2 gays on it. I actually walked it to get somewhere else. Next year there were some bulldozers. Understand that there was no electricity, no roads there, etc. Next year there were half-completed buildings. 2 years later whenI walked there, it was a small town full of Westerners, with lights, seedy eating places, tours, etc! Just 5 years before, it was unbroken beach, with nothing there.

I think what gets me is that like you I am not a "tourist". I travel. But people in the thousands who are not of like-mind, and that's the key thing, just fly in for "holidays" to these places now.

I plan to avoid such places like the plague in India. Goa will be a place my train passes through :D.

Thanks for your post to us.

Looks like I may meet up with my friends in Jaiselmer. I had planned to go some small dunes for the night there by camel - but guess what? I just found a blog by people recently there. About 70 tourists all arrived in the evening and camped on the same dune! So that's out for me too. :DI might find a remote place to take camels to.

So where you are, they advertise gurus for Westerners? Boy. Why not set ourselves up in the trade? 😉

What a pity. I was going to give the link to this person's photo online where 60-70 people end up on one dune overnight to get away from it all! They must have seen that it looked ridiculous, and edited it off the net. [&:]

But you know how there is "Indianese" or "Indglish" - that they don't see how funny things can be to us? MayI share these? :D:D:D

[link= http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/92051028/in/set-72057594055045409/ ]http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/92051028/in/set-72057594055045409/[/link]
Typical Brit humour. 😀

[link= http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/109217434/in/set-72057594055045409/ ]http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/109217434/in/set-72057594055045409/[/link]

[link= http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/95275797/in/set-72057594055045409/ ]http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/95275797/in/set-72057594055045409/[/link]

[link= http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/109217433/in/set-72057594055045409/ ]http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/109217433/in/set-72057594055045409/[/link]

Last but not least:

[link= http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/95267255/in/set-72057594055045409/ ]http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/95267255/in/set-72057594055045409/[/link]

V xxxxx

RE: A big namaste from India

Venetian, quite miffed, said:

In 1990 in Crete I found a one and a half mile beach with only 2 gays on it.

how outrageous, V!! did you complain and tell them you had expected a few more?? 😀

oh come on, V! thanks to quick air travel all us tourists get to see parts of the world we'd never have encountered... seeing as some of us worked from an early age and couldnt afford to take months off to back pack!! 😉 i am very grateful for the opportunities i have had to "holiday" in many places and i dont think i impacted on any purist "non tourists" [8D], so there!!

location location location remember... there are always "off the beaten" tracks to be found. 🙂

glad to hear you got there safely sunanda and have the beauty of broadband at your fingertips... makes all things meditational so much the better!! 😀

x

RE: A big namaste from India

ORIGINAL: ro§ie

seeing as some of us worked from an early age

Er! My own money didn't fall out of the sky! Not that it took much.

Yeah, 2 on the beach wasn't nearly enough. 😉

RE: A big namaste from India

Hi Sunanda,

Glad you arrived safely. Have a wonderful time and use those internet cafes often to keep us posted!

Love and light

reikiangel

xxx

RE: A big namaste from India

sunanda. It's lovely to hear from you all the way from India. Glad you found an internet cafe to 'talk' to us from.

Your holiday 'home' sounds fascinating and I bet the weather is better than this dismal stuff in the UK. But today is DRY where I am and that's a pleasant change.:D

I look forward to hearing more about your travels - in due course. Have a great and relaxing time.

Moonfairy
x

RE: A big namaste from India

Hi guys

Thank you all for your greetings. Isn't it amazing that we can keep in touch across so many thousands of miles!

I just wanted to say a word or two apropos of David's complaint about 'tourists' taking over from 'travellers'. I have to say, David, that your feelings are quite common amongst the old backpacking crowd...and very understandable. But if you do a bit of soul searching, wouldn't you say there's a touch of superiority complex in there? Sorry - don't mean to offend - but why should you have that beach all to yourself. It's a bit selfish IMHO! Furthermore, have you considered that the local people, who are usually dirt poor in all these undeveloped locations are probably super happy to see mass tourism arrive, given that it brings in the dollars which can raise their standard of living, allow them to educate their children etc. I know that in the places I go, which used to be backpackers' havens and are now either 'overcommercialised and spoiled' or 'clean, hygienic, comfortable and with good broadband connections' (depending on your POV) the local people would rather have tourists than travellers any day!!!

Sorry, I don't want to be mean to you, but your view is a bit NIMBYish to be honest. And I bet you'd have a whale of a time in Goa! (Not that I've been there either - but people I know just love it.)

Lecture over. Have you booked your ticket yet?

Love
Sunanda xxx

RE: A big namaste from India

Hi Sunanda,

I quite agree with you! (1) Why shouldn't anyone or everyone travel???? (2) Tourism does help the locals, yes!!! It was purely from a personal viewpoint upon how things impact people like me.

In the example I gave, there was a beach of over a mile in 1990 with NO-ONE on it (well, 2 guys in the far distance). Five years later it's all discos and beach chairs. So right back at you :Dthere are many places like this that once were, as it were, "my" (or other peoples') secrethaven. They are now gone - simply gone.

It's like turning a lovely English forest into an ugly housing estate. I think everyone will have seen that happen and know how awful it is to see. You don't really think that those people needed homes or that it paid builders' wages. You see a blot on the landscape.

But I accept the process. ;)Things change.

On booking, I was actually online now to choose my date if I can. This is a detail, but I'm not in London and was going to get a visa via an agent ... but I can't release my passport. I need it for vital ID, for other things,for over a period of9 days yet. :eek:So another few days of delay.

Enough of that and me. I'm sure all would like to know anything you can tell about your time there and experiences, though it may not be new to you. 😉

Well, I will if I may use your thread to tell of a book I just picked up and began. "Indian Summer" by Will Randall (2004). A true and recent story. He was a teacher working in a terrible London school where he couldn't teach but spent the whole day getting abuse and - you know the kind of school. A deprived area. On a schooltrip to a museum the kids just ran riot. He was shellshocked each day.

Anyway, at that museum an old European lady approached and said, "You seem to need help, and I used to be a teacher when young." She had the knack of bringing them under perfect control, but no-one else could. He hated the job.

She said, "I can see that you hate this work. I am going each year to India with much luggage. If you can help with my luggage I will pay you." He agreed and landed at Mumbai with her. And gets utterly shell-shocked by the noise and crowds of course. 😉

Once he's delivered her to an inland place (where she has a rich, old boyfriend), he's free. What to do? Run or fly right back to England? Probably! But he sits in a cafe and a young lad sits across from him. After the usual question of "Where are you from?" comes "What do you do?" And Will Randall tells that he's a teacher (a profession he's ashamed of, actually).

"I have a father, and he has a school. Well, not exactly my father, and it isn't exactly a school. Please would you like to see it? I have a scooter."

Will really doesn't want to go but ends up going. To cut a long story short, a good man who works as a sweeper uses all his money to run a "school" for homeless young children in the Pune slums. And Will ends up taking over and making something really great of it.

I tell this story as it's amazing - he never made one decision! The old lady grabbed him at the London museum, and then the young boy grabbed him in the Pune cafe. From living in hell daily to being utterly fulfilled! How wonderful ... 🙂

V

RE: A big namaste from India

Great story V.

My prediction - as world travel becomes less respectable and more expensive (give it 10 years - Global warming/ the Russians controlling the oil supply) the world will calm down again and only the dedicated will travel - oh and thevery rich. Andwe will return to a world where there are only two gays on the beach. The rest of us will be lucky to afford the train fare to Bournemouth or we can rediscover the joys of long distance cycling. My Dad was regularly packed off ON HIS OWN from the age of 11 to cycle to visit his aunt up in Bedfordhire. He livedin Streatham. It seems absolutely extraordinary. He was a great cyclist until he was 19 or so and had an ambition to cycle to La Scala in Milan - that meant over the Alps -and back in 2 weeks. Thatcured him of his love of cycling.

But I digress.

Dear Sunanda, it's great to hear you are safe and well and happily enjoying your visit.

LOL,

Sharonxx

RE: A big namaste from India

Hi all

My reply to Venetian was sitting a little heavy on my soul as I knew it was a tad holier than thou. As is so often the case, I was sort of playing devil's advocate, because actually I have been 'guilty' of experiencing the same feelings as David i.e. bemoaning the advent of mass tourism coming to some little backwater that was previously 'all mine'. David's reply to me clarified things - of course it is horrible when a pristine beach is covered in concrete boxes and taken over by Sun readers knocking back the beers. And my point about the locals needing the money was ill thought out too as so often they go for the quick buck and ruin a place, rather than consider the future. That is why sustainable tourism is so important - and so often not implemented! I have never been there but I have an inkling that Costa Rica may be getting it right with its emphasis on eco tourism. I do hope so. Actually, you don't even need to go to the third world to find people screwing up the environment - on the coasts of Spain and Portugal so much water is being diverted to the hotelswimming pools and posh golf courses that the farmers inland are suffering drought conditions and failing crops. Indeed people are short sighted.

Anyway, having got that off my chest and breathed a sigh of relief that I haven't offended anyone, I am going to start a new post to tell you about what is going on where I am right now!

Love
Sunanda xxx

PONGAL

This comes under the postcard from India heading:

I want to tell you a little about the festival of Pongal which started yesterday and will go on for four days in total. Pongal is a Tamil harvest festival (Tamil Nadu is a large state in South West India; Lonely Planet says its the state which looks and feels like you imagine India will be) and it started yesterday. It's to do with cooking sweet rice pudding in an earthenware pot and allowing it to boil over: firstly though you should break your old pots and burn your old clothes. So it's a festival of renewal. The shops are full of people buying new kitchenware and clothes and it's traditional to give gifts to people you know. (The local people go round wishing you 'Happy Pongal' and holding their hands out!) Today the Sun God, Surya, was worshipped and tomorrow is Cow Pongal, when all the cows, bullocks, oxen etc will be washed and decorated, horns painted and wrapped in flower garlands. It's particularly auspicious for a calf to be born at this time. On the fourth day people visit their friends (and some people get drunk so you have to watch the road!)

In Tamil Nadu the housewives create a pattern in front of their houses every morning. This is called a kollam (in the north it's rangoli). Traditionally they would use rice powder - this would feed the insects - but now they use powdered chalk. Normally it's just white but for Pongal and other festivals they use many colours and create huge and beautiful designs. This is folk art at its finest as all the designs are produced freehand by the wives and daughters of the house. Last year I took many photos of these designs but unfortunately I didn't bring my laptop this year so I can't upload any of them. However I found this wonderful website which will give you loads more information if you are interested.
[link= http://www.pongalfestival.org/ ]http://www.pongalfestival.org/[/link]

Love
sunanda xxxx

RE: PONGAL

Hi Sunanda,

No problem. Where's that "girlie" smiley <searches> ... [sm=food-smiley-004.gif]No, wrong one. Er ... the Hugs smiley is gone! So - [sm=1kis.gif]It was interesting to 'hear' you balance out your own thinking, since your post did make me think I'd been 'holier than thou' too. OK so I was one of the Magic Bus brigade. So? The best option lies somewhere in the middle, yes.

Last night I read a lot into that book I mentioned. I know you'll love it when you return. "Indian Summer", Will Randall, Abacus, 2004. There's a superb chapter on him, an ordinary bloke who never heard of Osho, wandering innocently into this place where everybody is hugging, living off Daddie's money, spending all day daaaarling having aromatherapy etc, and twittering about these awful urchins who hold their hands out, how dirty!

But it's 90% about this so-moving account of the little children of the Pune slums. They are delightful, yet come from terrible backgrounds, so bad it boggles your eyes. The slums grow up organically starting as cardboard and tin, but over time people build with mud and brick. Yet they are all in fact on land owned by someone, and there's always the threat that the commercial owners of the land can instantly bulldoze down the whole 'town'. He's teaching in a little mud room about 12x8 as I got to last night. A real insight into Indian slum life, in the most heart-warming sense.

P.S. I might try telling Somerset people "Happy Pongal" then!

V 😉

RE: PONGAL

It's fantastic to read your posts Sunanda! Thanks for sharing. I'm glad you had a safe journey and I wish you well during your time there. You never did put me in your case did you!! 😉

I look forward to reading more..................

Love, light and blessings,
Guin x

RE: PONGAL

Hi Sunanda,

Glad to see you are enjoying your time in Tamilnadu. You may be aware that one of the most important Pujas in the Hindu Calendar takes place about 24 hours from now, as I write:
Saraswati Puja. Some details in :

[link= http://www.thisismyindia.com/culture/puja/saraswati-puja.html ]http://www.thisismyindia.com/culture/puja/saraswati-puja.html[/link]

That website states:

“Next to West Bengal (where I come from) it is celebrated in southern states of India such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh etc. in schools, colleges and homes.”

Have you experienced any celebration of the same ?

You mentioned “The Hindu” Newspaper on another post. I have no knowledge of the same. When I lived in India, a long time ago now, The Statesman used to be highly regarded. Have you come across the same? Here is its website:

[link= http://www.thestatesman.net/ ]http://www.thestatesman.net/[/link]

Take care. All the best.

Prashna