Colombo -- ! Sri Lanka ! --

Here I am! In Sri Lanka!

Although I was quite close while I was in India, I was not there... Now, it's done :-) 10 months traveling. It's a bit longer than flying from St Exupery to Colombo, for sure. But it was worth it.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Wish you all the best in CS, in your family, in your city, in your country and in your small and big projects!

Yes I flew from India to Sri Lanka, that's why I arrived in Colombo. I looked for a ferry. A company had tried for a year... then stopped providing the service. Because of political issues?

Before moving from the capital, I waited for Alexandre, the Frenchy touch, from Lyon who came to visit me!  We spent a nice and quiet New Year's Eve at a restaurant, drinking bier, discovering Sri Lankan dishes and watching cricket :-).

With Alex, many French surprises were waiting for me in his bag. Home made French bier, cheeses, tapenade and other great stuff! Thank you guys for these flying Xmas presents!!!!

After walking on beaches, taking photos of the only big park of the city and extending our visas, we moved to Kandy, the 2nd biggest city of the country and a hot spot for tourists... grrrr Where fortunately Benjamin and his family welcomed us in the greeny hills of Kandy. Nice talk, nice food, nice view and nice CSurfers from all around the world to meet! :-)

Alex et son bel appareil vous présentent l'esthétisme qui suit :

La sortie d'école

1ère vision bouddhiste

Train de Colombo à Kandy

Thirthahalli IN

Thanks to Apoorva, I discovered the surroundings of Thirthahalli, a countryside city. There is no wine, no cheese there, but good vibrations! Western Ghats still, great nature, a farm to take care of, some camp fire trips, a simple but well equipped kitchen to experiment Indian cooking. What else do I need? :-) So, in the list of the exotic food I am able to cook now are: rotti, chapati, how to use chilli, prepare rice flakes and choose a good coconut!

Lunch time in a small canteen...

Simple, healthy and tasty food: masala dosa, a slighty spicy thali with coconut and cucumber chutney, on a banana leaf that you wash on the table before eating, an old man, with a perfect round and firm belly, broken but still useful glasses on the nose, smiling at you while asking "more rice? another puri?". And the metal baby glass of light pink milky and sweet tea... hmmmmm... The updated newspaper liing around. :-)

Food is part of life, food is what you are made of, day to day life. Food here is an institution. In France too, for sure. In India, I believe that food is a significant part of people wisdom and happiness. Probably less meat, no red meat at all,  proteins from pulses, but not too much, spicy food, but not heat releasing, gluten free, less energetic, a few pieces of potatoes... Sad that all of these are full of pesticides. :-/

Family importance, sense of belonging to a community, lights celebrations and flowery, musical parties all the time: there is no day without fireworks or crackers let off in streets in India. Could they be some keys for happiness?

paddies

Sunrise at Kodachadri

Un peu de wwoofing dans la plantation de hévéas

Western Ghats IN

Western Ghats or Wonderful Grazing! A place made for me. :-)
We hit the road down south with Maria and her driver Apoorva. The Western Ghats was all ours!

Winter time there is like a smooth summer in France, sunny, warm enough, but still softly chilly at night. Landscape is lovely: hilly, kind of mountainous, rivers everywhere, clean ones, where you can swim against the current, as a Big Fish among the other swimming animals, waterfalls, deep forests, huge old trees, nice creepers, green leafy wood, cool and humid small areas in the middle of nowhere, wild or domestic cattle grazing around. And quietness :-o, few cars, almost noise and pollution free, smart people, cleanliness of the street... After Mysore and a short nice time with Prem at his coconut farm, we headed for Tamil Nadu and Kerala border.

Bandipur National Park has been founded as a tigers reserve in 1973, and now protects several species of Indian wildlife, as Indian elephants. There is a ban on traffic from the hours of dusk to dawn. oh oh oh...  I felt the temptation irresistible to stay overnight in this wildlife. ;-) We stopped the car on the side of the road, walked around, aware of the elephants that could cross our way, then made fire, cut tomatoes and onions in the peaceful and clear evening, enjoying nature time... National police arrived suddenly, shouting in Kannada,  "How dare you, Indian piece of s..., getting this French and innocent girl involved in your dangerous and dirty plan!". Tension was highly perceptible. Bringing us down to earth, they lead us the way out of the park in order to wait for the final decision of our case with the park officers the very morning.  Thanks Apoorva for your perfect reactions! Mild and clever behaviour plus a few banknotes struck the deal before the police came. I told you, lady!

Kerala has the highest literacy rate in the country. Kerala is also known to be the cleanest state and the least corrupted. And many other positive points. And you know what?! This state is communist! :-) In 1957, for  the first time anywhere in the world, a communist government was democratically elected to power in Kerala.

Maria and Apoorva

USE DIPPER (or diapers!) AT NIGHT :-D

Bel emblème !

Tea, tea and tea estates again

Chikmagalur IN

Je suis très heureuse en Inde. Je m'épanouie. Je ne saurais pas encore décrire les différents éléments qui participent à ce bien être, mais la Rozenn est heureuse en Inde. :-)

Bien sûr, les personnes que je rencontre y sont pour quelque chose. Merci Anoop ! Jeune membre d'une graaannnnnnde famille de fermiers. Principalement planteurs de café. Mais qui produisent également des noix d'aréque, du poivre, du caoutchouc, de la cardamome, du cacao... La région est magnifique. Très verte, couverte de paddies (champ de riz) et de plantations de café. Chikmagalur est l'une des plus grosses régions de production de café en Inde. 15000 producteurs, un centre de recherche... Cela fait un sacré bout de temps que je n'avais pas bu de café. Le thé étant la boisson principale des derniers pays traversés (depuis la Turquie, by the way, ça fait 6 mois maintenant !). En Inde, les gens boivent le thé et le café, sucrés, très doux, et avec du lait. Et chose étrange pour moi, le café est mélangé à de la chicorée ! Plus DU TOUT le goût du café, avec tous ces perturbateurs, héhé ! Cependant, je retrouve avec plaisir le kind of coffee taste that I missed so much. And try to get a black coffee.Hé oui, me rapprochant des contrées les plus productrices du pays, je me dois d'essayer le café pur, pour voir de quoi il en retourne. Je ne suis pas déçue ! N'étant plus habituée à boire du café noir, une tasse qui m'aurait doucement réveillée en France m'a mis la tête sans dessus dessous ! J'ai eu besoin de 4h pour m'en remettre. Mais le plus étrange est l'explication qui m'est donnée par un local : "Oui, ici, on ne peut pas boire du café noir, c'est trop fort, ça donne trop de chaleur. Le climat n'est pas approprié pour boire du café pur. En Europe, il fait froid, vous avez besoin de chaleur, vous pouvez boire du café noir." Et en effet, aussi bizarre que cela puisse être, j'ai essayé le café noir 2 ou 3 autres fois, il m'est impossible d'en boire du aussi fort qu'en France, sans en ressentir des effets dévastateurs sur mon corps. Je tourne donc, comme tout le monde, au café dilué et lait. Or "2 and a cuuh" The Scottish way of saying: 2 sugars and a cow (milk) ;-). 

Anoop, in his coffee plantation

Black pepper plant

Coffee beans process

Me, trying to write Diwali

Shop Puja (shop blessing) during Diwali, great festival in India, festival of Lights

Dharwad IN

India is a democracy. Damned highly corrupted, however, and not implemented. But people are proud to say that India has a strong democracy. On Indian TV channels, people shout, discuss, argue, complain, vote, and shout again! I am very happy about it, despite that I have no idea about its efficiency.  I can't remember the last time I heard a country proud of  its democracy. France? nonono. Turkey? nonon. Linked to that, Indian people are full of energy, get easily excited. It is not rare to hear people yelling in the street, for details. Consequence of the noisy streets or just a way of expression?  That would be typical from northern India. Indeed, Karnataka seams to be quieter than Maharashtra.  4 states are part of southern India: Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In history, the south of India has always been very far from the northern areas. Even if India is big and every state, every district is very different, the distinction between north and south is even more relevant.

Hubli-Dharwad, a twin city, Dharwad for students, engineering and classical music schools, and Hubli for business, is a small city: 1.3M people.

Rajiv welcomed me, while he was working hard in a big company. We managed to see each other, finally! A nice Wifi connection allowed me to get  knowledge about Indian agricultural products and food! I cooked also: black gram and pigeon pea!

Mini Tibet : 15000 people for 8000 Tibetan monks in the middle of nowhere

Rajiv et notre moyen de transport

Goa IN

After a couple of weeks in India, some standard pictures I had had, simply vanished. Some were confirmed.
The mosquitoes are not that big trouble makers. For now, I haven't even used any repellent. ;-)

Food is amazing, however. The diversity is huge, the use of spices so wide, the number of cereals, beans, peas, lentils, nuts, vegetables and fruits is stunning, so much that I don't know. I keep experimenting! My gutt is safe for now.
I was kind of disappointed. Bicycles are not as used as I thought. The cities are full of scooters and motorbikes. 

Yes, India is crowded, but not as much as I would expect. First, I can deal with it. :-) I really thought that I couldn't. Furthermore, the streets are not that full of people... I mean, you can walk, like anywhere on this planet! The dimensions, the figures are just bigger than elsewhere. There are much more buses, the cities are gigantic, wide, much more spread, like markets or slums. 1 million people is a small city! A normal city is 3 millions. You have traffic jams, but equal to Paris, Teheran or Istanbul. Something new I must deal with: you don't wash your hair because of natural dirtiness, you wash them because they get dark, sticky and dry because of dust and smog. Is it like this in Paris? It's been a while I haven't been there. hehe...

After Mumbai and Poona, Goa is different, not like I described before.

Goa is one of the most touristic places in India. Like the Diois region, when you are there, you understand why. Green, nature everywhere, small hills, small paths, nice beaches, relax people... Fortunately, I was there just after the moonsoon and just before the touristic season. And yet, there were 3 westerners out of 5 Indian people: crazy! West invaded the area at hippy time, when the land was almost empty. An old hippy tradition remains. White people come to take a bath, and then stay for 3 years! It is the cheapest area in India, too. That helps.
I was hosted by Christopher a film maker, who notably made, for a great TV production, documentaries about society issues: female foeticide, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, dowry, alcoholism, chemical based farming, disability... Thanks to him, I had a upper class Beethoven performance the 1rst day, then a beachy afternoon with muslim children from slums, the day after. And every morning, fresh French bread and croissant from the French bakery around the corner. :-)

le bout de plage surveillée : 150m, et que des petits ingés indiens en maillots

Opération beach cleaning

Green Goa

Christopher

Une mosquée

Maharashtra IN

India! Another mystic destination that I am able to experiment. I am a lucky one.

Mumbai is not the Indian capital, but known to be BIG anyway! I don't know... I did not stay there. I escaped. I didn't want something to happen to any of my ankles again ;-)

Pune or Poona, the second largest city in Maharashtra, was on the way south Do you remember, I go to Sri Lanka. Getting closer every day! Aviram allowed me to rest, having quiet time, in quiet places. In his lovely neighbourhood, in the magnificent new mall, or in a concept city. A city in the city. Where everything is clean, peaceful, everyone is well educated, has a good job IT engineer is the best, my dear, is polite and respectful. The city is surrounded by walls, entry is controled, or not. The poor people stay outside, anyway. In this environment, I bought a nice Indian novel, had massages, got a Swirls ice cream, listened to Queen, the Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson, watched Friends. Easy life.

Aviram was the perfect introducer for Indian culture. He drew the link I missed between Iran and India: Pakistan, the country I couldn't go (No Pak visa is given outside your home country. You've done the right thing, Nathalie). He is Punjabi. Punjab was split up while creating Pakistan. I am still trying to figure out whether Muslim people fit well in the Indian society, whether they are welcome. :-/ "But the Chistian people, they build school here, they bring something to the society!". By the way, I have seen my first Montessori school in India. I don't know if there are more here than elsewhere.

Thanks Aviram!

Oh, and of course, I missed THE Osho (the sex guru) center, 20€ to enter and probably again 5€ for a bottle of water. Sorry Amélie, I haven’t done that... Shame on me.

J'essaie de me recoiffer. Merci Jacek d'immortaliser ce dur moment d'intimité !

Tel un dieu grec (!!), Aviram

Cocotiers et cannes à sucre

Dans un hotel, je prends soin de moi