Quiet Vietnam

That's ex-ac-tly what I needed :-)
Thanks to its weather, Da Lat is indeed, the garden of southern Vietnam: vegetables, fruits, a lot of flowers too. You can see greenhouses everywhere, some tourists saying "it's not that pretty, though". I don't mind, in my plate, the vegetables are full of vitamins, that's my point, hehehe!
Nothing to do, not a lot of people to talk to, nobody harassing me in the streets! Just me and my small laptop, a few pillows, my old worn-out hiking shoes, books (even if I struggle to find English books in this city :-/ ). I am an ascetic these days, and that makes me happy :-) The more I study, the more I realise that what I practice is Yoga. Name is not important... but still.

Writing a blog is completely addictive. Crazy, man! Probably because it is utterly egocentric Hehehe! Remind me to stop writing when I got back home, guys! Roz, you can see your friends now. You can talk to them on the phone or write emails otherwise! Easy! No need to send photos of your small bikini every week, hihihi!

Ca faisait longtemps que je ne vous avais pas parlé de la Ragi Girl, Martine. Mais elle continue à faire avancer le smilblic en France ! Avec un pastier breton, elle a fait des pâtes au millet vendéen (sans gluten et avec de la farine de pois chiche), la commercialisation dans une biocoop est prévue pour dans quelques mois. Et un article de plus dans Ouest France :
http://www.ouest-france.fr/actu/actuLocale_-Martine-Dugue-veut-promouvoir-la-culture-des-millets-_85095-avd-20130824-65782815_actuLocale.Htm

Toutes les photos sont prises quand il fait très beau (et trop chaud !). Mais c'est souvent nuageux. Et il pleut pas mal, tous les jours en fait, en fin de journée, 1 ou plusieurs heures. C'est réellement un temps très agréable. :-)

Une serre de fleurs

Merci Bao Anh de me faire visiter la région !

Un champ de fraisiers

Dans une pagoda, de nuit
Pleins de mudra !

Une nouvelle robe
un fruit du dragon dans les mains
Le devant de la Villa Cam Ly

La Villa Cam Ly de derrière

Da Lat VN

True to myself, I had to escape this big and nightmarish hot Saigon. After taking information, the ENTIRE country is hot like hell! My fate is to die in Vietnam :-§ What do you understand in this last smiley? Noooo, I will die old, fulfilled, after having taught my wisdom and having helped shaping a better world. :-) She's cute! They still have hope at this age.

There are 2 countryside cities where I am able to survive. One has been founded by the French colonists at the end of the 19th century, in order to escape the Vietnamese heat. Smart buddies! Thank you for coming before me, hihi! It is in the southern Vietnam, not too far from Saigon. Da Lat: 1500m above sea level, cool weather, cold nights: "City of the eternal spring" I love it!
After 3 days of struggling to adjust again to the temperature, things came back for good. I could start a proper recovering process. Good sleep, good food, proper hours, a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits. 

I found a cheap hostel, the Villa Cam Ly, in a quiet area of the city. Young friends running the business, listening to electronic music, playing guitar, full of positive energy. I'm close to the natural side of Da Lat, fields are 5min walking distance :-) and the vegetarian restaurant is next door, hehe!  
Tranquillement, à mon rythme (pas celui des touristes), je visite les environs. Je fais une grande sortie un après-midi sur deux. Repos le jour suivant. Oui, Dieu s'est reposé le 7ème jour uniquement, mais il est 'achement fort, lui ! Je marche, visite un peu, cherche des petits coins agréables, prends des photos. Le matin, j'essaie d'approfondir mes connaissances sur les chakras, les hasta mudras : positions des mains, leurs symboliques et bienfaits sur le corps et l'esprit. Cette retraite me fait énormément de bien. Rohit, my Indian Guru, would be very pleased to hear that I am working hard on chakras, mudras... :-)         

Cimetière : quelques collines remplies de sépultures,
bouddhistes et chrétiènnes mélangées
Les anciens ont la meilleure vue de la ville ;-)

Quiet evening in the city

Tuan, member of the Villa Cam Ly team

Saigon VN

Voilà voilà voilà voilà, je suis dans un nouveau pays, hehehe ! Ca faisait longtemps, hein ? Le changement vous manquait ? Moi... un peu... mais pas tant que ça. I am in Vietnam. 

Bangalore -> Singapore (stop for 24h), then Singapore -> Ho Chi Minh City.

In Singapore, I hitchhiked despite it is strictly forbidden, and avoided a big fine. ;-) Being a rebel is part of me, not for the sake of, but when it is justified. Most of the time for the freedom of expression. I need to express myself, as Rozenn, as a citizen of this planet, as a fighter for ethical values. 

I heard (while hitchhiking precisely) that when you are Singaporean les autres nationalités peuvent se brosser, Martine ! and turn 25, you got a flat, easy, communist way! But, you don't choose it, communist way. Every floor of a building welcomes a mix of the actual proportion of the different communities living in the country, communist way?

Il fait chaud et humide à Singapour. Petit avant goût...  

Saïgon, 7h du mat : Boudiou de Boudiou ! C'est HO-Rrii-BLEuuu °#&*gr^~ ça fait comment dans les bandes dessinées ? Ma version ne donne pas grand chose, je trouve... ! Il fait trop chaud dans ce pays de médeux (orthographe ?) !

Yes, indeed, all right, I thought so, of course, Ho Chi Minh City is hot... But I mean: REALLLLLY hot! And for the ones who haven't read the last messages, I am f.... tired! I could not adjust the weather. Y'avait pas moyen pour mon corps de s'adapter au climat. Mon corps dit non, il en a marre. Il ne veut plus. Paresseux au plus haut point. Bref, je souffre. Il souffre. En voilà une belle affaire !

Huong saved me while welcoming me the first days in this hostile Vietnam. Except the weather, my first impression of Vietnam is that the country has a strong French touch: very artistic oriented (Bohemian music bar for instance), very Frenchy elegant people, romantic boys, of course French architecture, nobody can speak English hihi... I'll complete the list later. This stroke me after the British India, obviously!     

For the last country in my Eastern Trip, I chose Vietnam. The reason? Because it is a communist and Buddhist country. :-) Let's see how I can experience it, learn more. Let me see how they manage as well, in this capitalistic world ;-)  

Thank you Dear :-)

Still tired, but in process of recovering
I swam again!!

Officiellement la Cathédrale Notre Dame de Saïgon.
La version Viet de la nôtre, en brique rouge

Pas de voiture, que des scooters
ça va être moins facile de faire du stop
Car, ici, il FAUT un casque :-/

Recentrage, reconnecter le corps et l'esprit
Devant une tasse de café Vietnamien
Pas le plus futé cependant hehe !

Green Path ending India

My last days in India, in Karnataka, in Bangalore, in Green Path www.thegreenpath.in. The photos give an overview of my activities. I've done a lot. Promoting Green Path at a tourism exhibition: “Good concept, good people”! Don’t laugh at me, guys? I really feel that way! Thank you for the fun times, by the way ;-) Doing millet experiments thanks to Jayaram and Raji who provided me the precious equipment: an Oven! Comparing sorghum, popped sorghum, ragi flour, ragi huri hittu and other millets flour. Teaching Green Path cooks some French or western recipes: cake, muffins, cookies, bread… I had no time to think I was leaving India, good point! No heartbreaking good bye, no tears. The travel goes on, life goes on. The next destination in the next message! 

Neil, trying to sell Green Path, hehehe!
"Good concept, good people" I'm telling you!

Raji and my breads 

Cute experimental breads

Tired but concentrated

Cooking students, Mandal assiduous, easy for the teacher ;-)

Experimental chocolate cakes

Jayaram and the Green Path mobile shop

Gopal, soooo coool singing sessions
with guitars and flute! 

Monsoon IN

Western Ghats, the last episod. The monsoon episod too! Depressing time: rains, rains and raining again... It's been at least one generation that they have not seen such a heavy monsoon. June, July: it just didn't stop raining one day. I don't say it rained all day and night long. However people need sunlight more than 10mn at a time and once a week! People are depressed, the paddy has been washed away, the farmers have to do the work again, in praying it will not happen the same. The trees have diseases, the next harvest will not be fun at all! 
Just a week or two with them made me feel depressed, really down. Being weak, bodily and mindly, does not help indeed. I came to know the Indian soil is so poor that the vegetables, or food in general is not nutritive... I am suffering from malnutrition. I don't know exactly which ones but I have deficiencies, obviously. That happens to some people after a few months in India. Cela fait quelques semaines que j'ai une crevasse au coin droit des lèvres, et je vous passe les autres petits détails croustillants de mon corps qui souffre. Il faut dire que je n'aide pas mon corps à récupérer, la constante nécessité d'adaptation aux différents milieux est exténuante : différentes personnes, différents rythmes, différents climats, différentes nourritures. Un peu de stabilité ne serait pas de refus. Dharward, Bijapur have really spicy food, and dry and warm climate, the Western Ghats is cold, rainy for this season, with average spicy dishes, Bangalore is again different... My only sustained activity is meditation in the morning, as far as I can. 
Despite these difficulties, I had really nice times with Nivedan and his mother in the rainy forest of Shimoga district. Thank you very much for welcoming! And good luck for your ecological car fresheners: Mystic Aromatics, I wish you the best car freshener brand in the next decades! :-)

Sumathi
helping me for my experiments.
Here it is ragi and sorghum laddus!  

Tunga Flood

Tasting my pastas :-)

Nivi, devant un grooos barrage: Gajanur dam, Tunga toujours

Paddy not washed away!

Rozenn, fatiguée

Beloved India

First of all, here it is: I come back to France in October. 
The decision was difficult to take, but I deeply know that I am not from India, nor Asia, and I cannot live there. No bikini on the beach, no expansive behaviour, not laughing too loud, respecting men/women segregation, enduring the social pressure, spending time with women who don't fulfill themselves elsewhere than in a kitchen (I'm thinking about doing that in France, by the way!). Although this is not all India, these facts are depressing. I also realise - I know that what follows sound really weird - my body and my mind are not meant to live here. They are too fragile. I don't know how it is possible, but things happen differently here, compared to Europe. I am more sensitive, mindly and bodily. Now I have learnt how to trust my body and my mind, I can say this piece of the world is for Indians... or at least not for me. During a day, the weather and the temperature change but they don't change themselves. They don't need to wear a sweatshirt. I do. They have to face so many social pressures, frustrations and problems, the arranged marriage, family matters, and they handle them. I could not. And even though, I feel myself more affected by little things I could easily handle in France. Vibrations are different here... It also works with positive things. :-) 
My mind is too subtle, too weak for this land.  

Furthermore, traveling forever is, somehow, possible, but it is not what I dream of. For now, I am dreaming of snoooooowwwww and skiiiiii and mountaaiiiiiins, and skiing on the snow in mountains!! The Alps are calling me back!         

By the time I leave India, I may achieve a bit of things :-)

Maize flaking process

Maghana and Mallikarjun (left)
I thank them for welcoming and helping for my millet pastas!

Sorghum and ragi pastas
Probably the first ones on the globe! hehehe! 

Sending 5kg of pastas to France

Tunga in December 

Apoorva, meditating ;-)

Tunga, the same place, in June

Tunga, the same place, in July

Couchy Bangalore IN

As I said before, Bangalore is worth the trouble for the density of great and different people you can meet. I could even find a wonderful couch: at Pragyan and Mohan's. Pragyan, who has lived, for years, in the French speaking part of Africa, could only speak French for cooking (thanks to her maid) and for directions (thanks to her driver)! ;-) The really fun part is she, as an Indian lady living in Bangalore, has more extroverted clothing taste than me. Emancipated women were in town! The bar counter still remembers our dancing heels ;-) This blog being not 18 restricted, no compromising photos will be shown. Hehe! Beside that, I was staying at the highest building in Blore, 32 floors, helipad at the top, Wifi, washing machine, hot water shower, a wonderful cook to teach me how to make ragi dosa (dosa = Indian crêpes or pancakes, eaten along with fried vegetables), ragi huri hittu ladu (dessert en forme de boule, ici à base de roasted ragi), and, of course 2 cool hosts I enjoyed spending time with! Thank you guys :-). I hardly went to office, I could work at "home" and appreciate the view at the same time! Hehe!     

In the Green Path hotel were staying a group of American and Indian students working on entrepreneurial social development projects in India. At the end of a hard working week, each group presented its project: mobile toilets for slums, school bags which can be transformed into a studying chair, recycling water with an  easy technique: connecting the washing machine to the toilet, bicycles renting in the city (Vélov, Vélib), biogas in the Green Path hotel and neighbourings, and many more ideas. Bien bien de faire plancher ces petits jeunes ! Afin de trouver des bonnes idées, économiques et réalisables pour une société indienne avide de solutions pour ses problèmes à dimension de subcontinent ! :-/

My couch, the highest building in Blore!

Un repas de mariage est toujours extêmement bon !
Servi évidemment sur une feuille de bananier.

South Indian wedding, 1500 people but not fun at all

Pragyan, Me and Mohan

La fête de la musique ! :-)
A l'Alliance française de Bangalore

Ragi seeds, soaked and germinated (48h).
En zoomant, vous pouvez voir le petit germe blanc sortir !