India

I went to the south of India (Tamil Nadu) for the 1^st of May holiday. Even if it was too short, the experience was intense, as I could have imagined before. I visited Madras (Chennai), Mamallapuram and Pondicherry. Chennai is a megalopolis and very chaotic, and I love it! It is true I had not seen so much poverty before, but neither had I seen so many colors and peace in people’s eyes. Everything is dirty and there are cows walking in the middle of the streets, and people selling everything. The most amazing thing is that people are starving, but it feels safe, they are not trying to steal or deceive you. Maybe I was lucky, but people were only coming to me to talk, they were very curious (even if many had no idea of what Brazil was), and it felt so pure, I don’t know, I was really touched by every single contact with the people I made. Even the children, they want to practice their English and whenever you go, they would shout “Hello, how are you?” and smile.

Pondicherry is an ex colony of the French empire and therefore a lot of French influence, and therefore I guess frequent French visitors, and people would come to talk to me in French (thinking I was French). It was interesting. I met this guy who wanted to practice his French and he took me in his motorbike and was telling me about the town etc. I also had one of the best “coq au vin”’s in my life in a French restaurant for less than US$5.

And Mamallapuram is a “temple city”, where they did these stone carvings during the 6^th-7^th centuries mostly, and they are very impressive.

Some other curious things were to see how they enjoy the beach differently: they usually gather there thousands of people, but they are dressed, and they mostly don’t even go into the water (opposite of Brazil, where everybody is almost naked). Then the food I was afraid before I went, that I’d have problem with it, as everybody warned me before, but actually Singapore has trained me well (I eat Indian food here a lot), and I was already used to most of the food, and it was pretty good, and some of the lunches or dinners I paid less than US$1 for a nice meal with a soft drink included!

India was one of the few countries that I visited, that I cried of emotion: I cried a few times, the first time was when I saw these children dancing to Indian music in the street, and they were so happy and when they saw me they would smile and all say “hi, how are you?” and continue dancing and laughing and showing their abilities. And the middle of street in India includes cows, people selling fruits, flowers etc, dirty everywhere, all under a 40 C weather.

Then taking a bus to go to the south, this boy came to talk to me and told me about his whole life and really he had no interest at all, he was just curious and he was so nice. He was just one of many who did the same, but when he left the bus, he was waiting outside to wave me goodbye, and his eyes transmitted me so much peace, I was crying along the way down to Pondicherry.

And then these “processions” to the temples, with instruments and elephants and monks and people offering fruits and flowers to the gods. And if it was in any other place, they’d maybe be angry I was taking pictures, but there they were just smiling. It made me cry once more.

Maybe I was too emotional, but India did make an impact on me, and I’ll carry it for the rest of my life. I do want to go back and see other parts of the country, it was too short this time.

See my pics at Flickr!!! The cool thing is that now the videos are also included at the Flickr album. I also added recently pics from Phuket, Malacca (Malaysia), Bintan (Indonesia) and Brunei. Just click at the link below:

www.flickr.com/photos/gibin/sets