Life & travel scribbles

Welcome to one of the most amicable states in India – West Bengal. Don't know if this is equally applicable to every single place within it, but even if I didn't notice much difference Kolkata had it's undeniable, unique ambient. What came to my mind first when getting across it once I arrived was – hectic and „what's going on down here?!”, especially after my 34 hours continuous, lazy journey all the way up through 2 other states (~2000km). Nevertheless the following day we drove a bit through the main centre, still a dense bustle, but a lot to admire too. We visited famous bookstore street spreading along the never ending labyrinth of streets, had some teas served here in cute, clay cups and went to somewhat awkward and definitely quaint back street where apparently not many tourists reach (not many people in general) which were a nest of craftsmen manufacturing their art, is to say, big figures of goddesses and gods, mainly. If to come there a...

After reaching Kanyakumari, the furthest tip of India to the South, we popped up to Sriananda Ashram near Madurai which turned out to be very different from what I thought it might have been.. What I mean by saying that? We met a lot of people recommending this Ashram for a range of different reasons, but I just felt it was not what I was expecting. The yoga there seemed to me to be more "military" style than regular exercising and too much singing lyrics that I had no notion about ;) But all in all, people we met and a bunch of other, compounded things made that stay there still pleasant enough for 3 days. painting crafted within a week or so delicious food Right after we hasted up to Auroville, one of the most expected (at least by me) places on our rough traveling draft. First we decided to make some reconnaissance around the whole complex of Auroville so we stopped by the beach for first 3 nights and tried out a few projects first, like: Buddha Ga...

Unforeseen... So! Once we finished with the mountainous area we went down to western coast, heading towards Kotchi. Our final destination for the next few days was about to be Alleppey though (45km's away). But things went differently, totally not the way we wanted... 30 km away from K. we crashed-up on the street after some lunatic guy had driven into us turning up out of nowhere from behind a bus... It's what J. says, because I just recorded the moment we were sneaking through the rows of cars and then....when I was already on the floor, jumping up on my feet to save the GPS that landed some meters away (almost smashed over by an approaching bike..).. So yeah, so much fun in India! ;/ FORTUNATELY, none of us got hurt, it's just the bike that suffered all the pains of that accident. One of the side boxes got ripped off almost completely (it was useless so we left it behind), front lamp shattered while the bike heavily landed on the road and the rear indicator was...