09/12/2011
Comment book - My father
My parents came to visit me this summer, for the 3rd time!
On their first trop they went to Pune and Kerala.
On the second to Mumbai and Rajasthan.
And on the last to Mumbai, Uttarakhand, Pondicherry and Matheran.
And here go my father about his experience – he also inaugurates the category “comments of visitors”:
I also updated my photoblog with pictures taken by me or my dad during the trip, a mix of glimpses of everyday India: http://indiansamouraipics.hautetfort.com/
Pictures to be posted every second day from September 10th to November 18th.
"A different India that doesn’t leave you indifferent!
This summer 2011, I got to discover other aspects India than those met during previous visits, less touristic, in any case more “Indian”, more authentic, in short away from the beaten paths like we say.
Mumbai! The first time that I came here, I found it so ugly! This time...
...I felt well in this place: eating a tart under the shelter of a small center of yoga that has recently opened, looking at the rain falling; treating myself with relaxing massages (feet, back); having a drink and dinner in a trendy restaurant, wandering in a new mall, very new, very beautiful; and I am getting connected to Mumbai! And then this time I discovered what… monsoon is: loads of water! loads of water, in an instant! But also how exciting!
The green hills of Kumaon in the Himalayas: not too many choices to go there but to try, from Delhi, the experiment of a night train, in sleeping-cars from the past! Destination Ramgarh where we stayed in a bungalow on the hillside – a view that kept changing, superb. A luxury in India: we were alone in this “non-hotel” hotel: we are off season! Peaceful! Who said that India was noisy?
Ananda resort in Uttarakhand. A must for a “wellness therapy” the Indian style, including: yoga, organic cuisine, ayurveda etc. Again a night train to go there. In the hotel: white pyjamas provided to everyone one and “strongly recommended”: an environment that looks like a psychiatric center to rest in a dreamy landscape. Very fancy!
Pondicherry. Streets with French names, beautiful esplanade on the sea front. Very beautiful temples around, small bundle of grass given to the elephant in front of the temple so that he blesses your heard with his horn. Auroville: utopian city which does not belong to anybody (2500 inhabitants, 50 nationalities), conceived in the 1970s in an arid zone. 1.500.000 trees planted by its inhabitants. Creation of a new world, of a new humanity which aims at letting open out the individual within a community which joins together beings animated by the desire to cultivate the “human unit”, concept close to fraternity. To be a follower, you have to be quite familiar with meditation! Surprising nevertheless to be able to visualize the realization of a Utopia still standing more than 30 years later!
Matheran: a holiday village on top of a hill where cars are prohibited: one goes up there walking, on a horse, with a handcart. Breathtaking landscapes! To consume without moderation! One wants to go back there.
To conclude: this stay enabled me to get familiar to hidden facets of India which made me like India differently. I can’t wait to see more treasures like these ones!"
My father, 10/09/2011, Travel in August 2011 (Mumbai, Uttarakhand, Pondicherry, Matheran)
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