"iNCREDiBLE iNDiA!" India by ptitetoile

Namaste!

India has been in my heart for about 1 year and a half...since I began to dance Bharata natyam, a classical dance of South India, with the teacher Eric Rozen in Brussels. Already during the first weeks, I had a glimpse of the relation between the dance, the religion the culture and the way of life in India... And the desire to know the country for real has been growing more and more since then! In 2006, I had no other travel idea in my head, it became as an obsession! I looked in many books, many blogs of expats living there, bought books and rented videos about India to see how was the country and what I should visit. Finally I decided to make a long trip through South India... the part of India where the hindu culture was born. But I did not feel strong enough to do it alone as it was a first time in Asia. So I looked for an organised trip and after hopeless seaches, I finally found the perfect trip three weeks before the departure date! I went with a Belgian adventure trip agency with the close-to-the-population-and-environnement-and-culture-respectful philosophy... so I left with a happy heart with 12 friendly backpackers!!!!

As from the first day on, I felt very well in this country and I had my first Indian bharata natyam dance lesson on the second day....What better start could I imagine! We drove throught TAMIL NADU, KERALA and KARNATAKA, visiting temples, enjoying the green nature and discovering the wonderful and inspiring hindu culture.
Of course, India has very hard aspects that everybody knows about...but I was well prepared and I must admit that South India is quite "mild" and spared me a big shock. Despites these "sad" aspects, all I keep in mind are the smiles and the wonderful joy of the inhabitants, the expressions on their face, the wonderful colors, the elegance of the women, the beauty of the children, the meaningfull way of life....

The towns/regions we visited were :

-Chennai - for its reputation as Bharata natyam city
-Mamallapuram - for its ancient Pavala civilization and holiday atmosphere
-Kanchipuram - for its three famous temples
-Chidambaram - for the Dancing shiva temple and its magic religious atmosphere
-Thanjavur - for the wonderful golden color of its temple at night
-Trichy - for its giant temple with 7 walls, its ghandi market and rock temple.
-Madurai - for its sacred temple, banana market, ghandi museum, ghats, bike rikshaw tours, tailors and texile market!
-Backwaters - fabulous tropical networks of canals with easy going life on the banks, on board of a comfortable houseboat
-Allepey - village on the water, final destination of the cruises on the backwaters
-Cochin (Kochi) - for its colonial portuguese and dutch atmosphere
-Coimbatore - as departure point to hill stations
-Mettupalyam - for a glimpse of a town outside of tourist circuits
-Conoor - for the tea plantages and the nilgiri express train
-Ooty - for its hill station atmoshere, tea plantages, moutain views
-Mudumalai natural park - for its savana fauna (wild elephants, apes, leopards, bambis, water buffles) and flora
-Mysore - for its rich palaces and sandal wood production
-Hampi - for its glorious past and countryside fantastic atmosphere
-Bangalore - for its ayurveda center!


I invite you to discover theses places in detail in the corresponding pages (in construction). You just have to click on the link ;-)

Bharata natyam dance

This is one of the student of Sujatha Mohan, a wonderful baratha natyam dance teacher that I had the chance to meet and that I admire a lot for her style based on the sculptures of the temples. I followed one lesson and it gave me even more motivation to go on and improve myself.

The dancer is 11 and this is a picture taken during her 'student programm' (1h30 long solo show!) after her 4 years of dance education! She danced perfectly with a fabulous face expression and impressive flexibility! You can see on the picture what she can do with her leg!

Ghandi market smiles

Could you resist to take a picture when you get so much smiles?
This is a picture taken in the fabulous Ghandi market in Trichy! The market in India is one of the nicest place, full of smiling people and fantastic colors!

I guess we were also the attraction of the market as we get more and more attention from the people, even receiving flowers from them!