Love and hate. A world of contrasts. Bizarre & fascinating. What an incredible world we have stepped into. Poverty & wealth live on the same street, lots of materialism, and yet so much spirituality, filth everywhere yet serene beauty too. It is so hard to describe this place fully & accurately!! It's like nothing else!
We landed in Chennai (Madras) 4 days ago & our itinerary has already been packed after such a short time!! We have tried to plan this month as best we could, but in India there is too much chaos to be able to truly make plans!
We spent a day in Chennai with my cousin who happens to live there. She showed us her neighborhood and brought us to some great South Indian food spots. I wasn't a fan of chennai-- people are quite rude and everyone is trying to rip you off (I know that is not the last time that will happen in india). My cousin was great though. We ate some great food with her--dosai, poori masala, addam, vada, ...these are just pieces of the names of foods but we loved them!! No stomach problems either (so far)! Best advice I have received : eat where others are eating!!! It's not as much the rank or prices of the place, but rather if it is popular! It hasn't proved us wrong so far :) Also when ordering drinks/juices its important to specify no ice, no sugar and no water added.
My cousin Karolina has lived in India for years now, always in the south, from Orissa to Kerala to Tamil Nadu. She loves it here, precisely for the escape it provides from the structure of Europe. It was incredibly fascinating to talk to her about these things and her choice of India. We can all learn so much from each other ! She teaches yoga and studies an Indian martial art/dance form called kallaripayatu (sp?). She loves it & doesn't plan to go back to Poland anytime soon, if ever!
....so, from the very start we had an interesting introduction to India through her eyes and many opinions an advice given to us by friends . Let the chaos of India begin!
We sat down with my cousin to discuss our tentative plan for the month. We stay in the south for almost 2 weeks, visiting select places in Tamil Nadu (southeast) & Kerala (southwest) before flying up to Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan. From Jaipur we head to Agra then Delhi then to Rishikesh & Dehradun which are the start of the Indian Himalayas. In Dehradun we will be doing a 10 day Vipassana meditation course (MUCH more on this in upcoming blogs!) and then we train it from the Himalayas to The Varanasi area and explore. We then either fly or take a train back to Chennai, hoping to visit the splendid town of Hampi on our way back down. We are only bringing small backpacks around with us for the month and we left our big backpack and suitcase at my cousins in Chennai for the month. We then fly out of Chennai to Bangkok and move on from there...
Phewwww that was a mouthful! How we are doing all of this I still don't know and I'm not sure if it will all work out--- but it is one hell of a month planned! Hopefully we will did some mysticism and spirituality along the way ;)
Oh, and funny enough, Tom is reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' before I am! Lol
