David Grajal

Introducing my first DSLR

David — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:47:45 +0000

Recently I bought the cheapest DSLR camera in the market, a Nikon D40. I wanted to learn basic photography and the only way to do so is to actually go out and take lots of pictures. You can learn photographic composition with the camera integrated in your cellphone, but to actually play with the light you need the correct gear.

These are some test pictures I took on my first week. There is such a massive improvement over my crappy compact camera that I wonder how come I didn’t bought a DSLR before. Now and I have the basic gear and I only need to improve so I ask for tips and tricks to every photographer I met!

Wide lenses test

Macro test

Sunset light test

Night photography test (yep, I'm still missing a small tripod)

Chennai, the end of the adventure

David — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:56:19 +0000

I didn’t visit Chennai when I first landed there at the beginning of my Indian adventure because we prefer to just rest and hung out for a few days. But on my last day in India I flew from Madurai to Chennai with time enough to explore the city before taking my flight to Europe. I arrived at lunch time and the flight to Frankfurt was in the late evening so I had time to visit the more important landmarks in the city. I met Dimitry in the airport and we explore together the city in a few hours. On the airport we took the best Autoricksack in India, new vehicle with a big pair of speakers and a subwoofer. No audio system, I guess the driver spent all the money on the speakers and he forgot to buy the radio

Driving the best Autorickshaw in the world

We saw the main monuments of the city, the beautiful beach were locals hung out and we went to a real Indian market to buy the same stuff this people buy. Chennai were my last hours in Indian soil. At that time I was so sick of South Indian food I just wanted to go to the airport and eat crappy Western food!

Rameshwaram and Danushkodi

David — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:55:21 +0000

Rameshwaram is the eastern most tip of India. Rameshwaran is actually an island connected to the mainland by a 20 years old bridge over the Pamban channel and is less than 40 kilometers from the Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka. It is considered to be one of the holiest places in India to Hindus. A lot of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees come to Rameshwaram on small boats sailing through the gulf of Mannar.

Monk?

Rameshwaran has one of the most important and oldest hindu temples in India. I really enjoyed going to Hindu temples because they are full of locals praying, while when you go to a temple in Europe it’s full of tourists! Hindu temples are really old, and are also special in the way they are built. Even the small ones seem very peaceful yet are still beautiful with the statues, the art, the paintings on the walls and ceilings and the flowers and colorful sarees on the statues.

Rameswaran

The most eastern tip of Rameshwaram is Danushkodi. The people who live here are fisherman who reside in straw houses in little villages. You can only go there on a an industrial truck since there are no roads, just sand. The whole area is a beach with the ocean on both sides. Danushkodi is full of remains, specially the big remain of a catholic church. Danushkodi it’s simple life at its best!

Danushkodi, close to the poing in which the finger of India try to touch sri lanka

Madurai

David — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:46:40 +0000

Madurai is known as the city of temples and for a good reason: There are lots of small hindu temples and there is a massive one. The big Madurai temple is one of the most important peregrinage centers for hindu people. Walking around this temple was like being inside a tomb raider videogame or a Indiana Jones movie. There were almost no tourists and it was so interesting to visit the temple on the company of locals that where actually praying to their gods. I loved it. I was even blessed by an elephant!

Receiving the blessing from the elephant

We couch surfed in Madurai for 2 days with Ragu, who let us stay at his guesthouse even though he wasn’t there to meet us. Not only did we have a place to stay without the host, we also got full use of his personal driver! It was the real royal Indian experience. At first Ann and I felt quite uncomfortable with people addressing us as sirs and madams but sightseeing Madurai in an A/C car was definitely something we got used to. After being treated like royalty in Allepey, it felt just as good to let the trend continue even though at moments we did feel guilty for feeling so spoiled.

Madurai Hindu temples

Houseboat in Kerala Backwaters

David — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:42:02 +0000

According to the Lonely Planet, do a night on a houseboat is a must do in India and one the ten things to do before you die.

Houseboat in Allepey

For 90 EUR we got a one bedroom houseboat equipped with 3 men for 24 hours. These men drove the boat, cooked us food (lunch, tea, dinner and breakfast) and took care of us as if we were royalty. They drove us to the backwaters of Allepey for about 6 hours. It was a beautiful cruise where you pass by locals villages and watch as daily life unfolds. Women were washing their clothes, children were bathing and playing, men were drinking toddy and chilling out. Meanwhile I was reading and staring out at nature from the terrace of the boat. Life doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

Under a mosquito net, for the first time in my life

At dinner time they stopped the boat for the night by a little village. We took a small canoe to explore the small canals. We did this as the sun was setting and it was stunning!

Kerala backwaters sunset

Beautiful sunset

Levantandonos y preparando el camino de regreso

Relaxing on the boat

This was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. It’s very relaxing and you get to absorb the most beautiful scenery and the local culture. It’s again something that can’t be explained, it’s something to be felt and experienced.

Houseboats

Cochin

David — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:26:56 +0000

The state of Kerela is known as God’s own country due to its lush greenery and beautiful backwaters. Ann joined me on the club of “I don’t understand what’s going on” because in Kerala they speak Malaylam which is similar to Tamil but different. Same same, but different as they say in Asia. Our plan was to stay one night in Cochin but somehow it turned into two, due to laziness, the fact that we somehow managed to gain an extra day on our itinerary and that luckily we met some couchsurfers who were able to give us the local feeling.

Cochin

My first time in an hindu temple

Fort Cochin is infamous for its Portuguese and Dutch influence which is still evident in its architecture. The houses and churches especially. It’s actually an island with bridges and ferry connections to the main land area known as Erankulum We also had a chance to watch the traditional Kerelan dance - Kathakali. There are a lot of similarities to the Tamil traditional dance of Bharathanatyam such as the hand gestures and the facial expressions, but Kathakali is much slower paced and it always tells a story which can go on for hours. We saw a performance specifically for tourists so it was only one hour long and the dance was completely explained making it much more enjoyable. It was beautiful!

Kodaikanal

David — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:43:18 +0000

After Pondicherry we headed to Kodaikanal, a hill station close to the Kerala border that has a long history as a retreat and popular tourist destination. You can notice the change in temperature instantly! The air is fresh and the hills are filled with amazing, beautiful and mysterious mist. We stayed in suite on the very edge of the hill, with panoramic views of the towns below. We stopped in Kodaikanal for a few days just chilling out and enjoying the nice weather.

Kodaikanal hotel

Kodaikanal lake

Kodeikanal magic mist ...

... and gorgeous views

Dancing bollywood style

Auroville

David — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:22:36 +0000

Auroville is a self-sufficient community a few kilometers from Pondicherry. It stretches across a vast area of land amidst some local villages. Wikipedia describes this place this way “Auroville (…) was founded in 1968 by Mirra Richard and designed by architect Roger Anger. Auroville is meant to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity. Mirra envisioned a town where unity will be celebrated and all will have a spiritual vocation. The town has 1,700 people from over 35 different nationalities, from which about one third are Indians (more than 15% are French and 15% are German).

The four point Auraville charter:

1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

We visited the beach entrance of the city and spoke to a frequent visitor there who has totally sold us the idealistic idea of it. Once we left the place we realized how big Auraville really is. It was extremely interesting for me, the people seemed extremely relaxed and calm and conscious of their lives and their environment. It was captivating, far from the hippies smoking weed and doing nothing with their lives we saw in Mahabalipurum. I would love to return to Auroville for a couple of weeks for an enlightenment experience!

Ann on her way to the mist

Pondicherry

David — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:13:42 +0000

From Mahabalipurum we headed south on the East Coast Road till Pondicherry which was a former French colony and is considered an autonomous state where French is still an official language. This place was full of tourists!

Yes, 20 kids packed on one autorickshaw

The city is a strange place in South India where the traffic is not too crazy and the streets are clean and full of Mediterranean style houses. They have museums with lots of European antiques. At night, a lot of locals hang out in European parks and on the beach by the ocean front, where a big statue of Gandhi

Traffic in India

David — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:00:39 +0000

To describe the traffic in India you only need two words: Organized Chaos. The traffic is a mix of cars, bicycles, motorbikes, trucks, buses, ox carts pulling goods, rickshaws, cows and goats, sometimes monkeys near temples and lots of stray dogs… all of them ~~driving~~ fighting for the same space on the road!

There are traffic rules but the police not really enforce it, and with good reason: The traffic in India is massive in numbers, and there is a slow but consistent flow of vehicles. If you make the people enforce the traffic laws, you will make everything slower, the people will become frustrated and they will try to do even more amazing stunts to flow trough the traffic. It’s amazing to just sit down on a busy crossroad and watch the traffic. It’s more entertaining than a good movie!