The Edakkal Caves are basically two rock formations purportedly formed by a large split in a mammoth rock. Legend has it that they were caused by arrows fired by Luv and Kush, the sons of Rama; the legendary hero of Ramayana. Like the world-renowned Ajanta and Ellora Caves in Maharashtra, the Edakkal Caves too were stumbled upon by an Englishman (in 1890) while on shikar.

The engravings found inside the Edakkal Caves (Neolithic etchings such as these are to be found only at a few places in Africa) shed light on the existence of a Stone Age civilization in Wayanad.

The number of people flocking the Edakkal Caves has been rising steadily over the years. In 2006, about 1, 27,000 people visited the Edakkal Caves. In 2008, this number rose to 2, 32,000. During holidays, over 2000 people flock the Edakkal Caves in a day. Such huge footfalls are posing a great risk to the rock engravings inside the Edakkal Caves believed to be of the period between 4000 BC and 1000 BC.

As part of its Responsible Tourism initiative in Wayanad, Kerala Tourism is now considering restricting the number of visitors to the Edakkal Caves to 720 a day. The maximum number of persons who would be allowed to go inside the Edakkal Caves at a time (for a maximum period of 20 minutes) has been pegged at 30. Steps like these would definitely go a long way in protecting the Edakkal Caves.

Sanjay Sivadas

(The author is a travel writer based in Bangalore. He may be reached at sanjaysivadas@yahoo.com)

Views of Kagbeni, on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, Photo © 2008 Belinda Meggitt

I need to get high. Without my fix I’m going to strangle someone. Please, take me to the mountain heights of the Himalayas. Or else my sanity will soon evaporate instead.

Hemmed as I currently am into a quiet corner of tropical Australia, I am desperately craving the jagged peaks that I know and love. I need to stun myself into a silent awe at the sight of Rakaposhi. I need to contemplate the miniscule length of my tiny life against the timelessness of the Diran, whose geological age defies imagination. I need the trivial troubles of my tiny life to fade away in the presence of my mountain gods. Their names are Annapurna, Kangchenjunga, Dhaulagiri, Everest and Nanga Parbat – each 8,000m-plus mountain I have seen in my short life thus far.

These spiritual longings spring from my younger days. From my hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a one-hour drive west takes you out of the western edge of the prairies and up to the eastern toe of the low-ranging and scenic Rocky Mountains. As Calgary is located much further north on the planet than the subcontinent, summer days are extremely long. I used to bail from the office at 5.00pm, reach the bluffs an hour later, rock climb until 9.00pm and make it home just as the summer sun ducked behind the mountains. Paradise.

The first time I went to the Himalayas, I chose to visit one of its most rugged and remote places — the Karakoram Highway of Northwest Pakistan. It was August 2005, long enough after 9/11 for the fury to have subsided, but well before the gorgeous frontier province became the veritable crucible of chaos it is today. On that brief and rushed trip, I only managed to glance at Nanga Parbat from the bus, preoccupied as I was by the dozen or so vehicles I saw half-submerged in the Hunza River beside the highway. Despite those fears, I still claim that the Karakoram holds the most raw and unexplored strip of Himalaya you can experience anywhere in the world. Despite the fact I rushed through the journey, it remains a magical one in my memory and I would return there tomorrow if I could.

The Jomsom Valley in Nepal, Photo © 2008 Belinda Meggitt

That first journey set the bar for me to return to the Himalayas four times afterwards. Drawn by the spiritual and healing power of the mountain gods, I have now spent weeks exploring these magical places. Twice I have been drawn to the deep green valleys of the lower Himalayas of Darjeeling; I have gasped for air in the higher regions of the Annapurna Circuit, stealing views of Annapurna I and Dhaulagiri from the monsoon; I have spent days contemplating the awesome power of Kangchenjunga from the loping hillsides of Sikkim.

Why are we drawn to the power of the mountains? What is it that they make us feel?

For me, it’s the spiritual elevation experienced at such amazing heights and the isolation. Trekking in the Himalayas is the only way to truly experience this transcendence. Stripped of mobile phones, laptops and total connectivity, while simultaneously minimising oneself to the most basic tools of survival, there is nothing to interrupt the silent reverence one must pay to the mountain gods in their presence.

And that’s why I need to get high as soon as possible.

Fancy a mountainous retreat in the West Bengal Hills? Mikey Leung reviewed and recommends the Neora Valley Jungle Camp, yet another HELP Tourism project located in a quiet valley near Lava in the West Bengal Hills. Read all about it on Travel to Care using this link.

The 'living root bridges' of Cherrapunjee

That’s exactly what Denis Ryan did almost 10 years ago. The former banker decided to move with his wife Carmela to the remote Meghalaya village of the Laitkynsew and open the Cherrapunjee Holiday Resort. Known as ‘wettest place on earth’, the couple banked on this soggy reputation in order to attract tourists. Despite their background, the couple says their motivation was never to make a profit.

As we learn in this 11-minute interview, Denis and Carmela wanted to help their community grow. Carmela originally hailed from this part of Meghalaya that borders Bangladesh and so the decision to start a resort here, and not a location where there were more tourists. And so as they have become experts in grassroots eco-tourism development, by virtue of their own experience.

You can read more about the Cherrapunjee Holiday Resort on the Travel to Care.com website.

See photos from the resort:

Photos are copyright Mikey Leung and Belinda Meggitt.

Interview with Denis and Carmela Ryan of the Cherrapunjee Holiday Resort

Listen to this interview in audio format:


Mikey Leung: Please introduce yourselves.

Denis Ryan: My name is Denis Ryan, I am from Madurai, in Tamil Nadu.

Carmela Shaati: My name is is Carmela Shaati, and I was born and brought up here in Laitkynnsew village.

ML: And why have you decided to set up your resort here? What sparked that decision?

DR: I was working in the bank earlier, and when I decided to leave the job I needed to figure out how to make a livelihood. I found that Cherrapunjee is well known and there was no place for tourists to stay. The people here were leaving this village for better opportunities in the city.

But a lot of people were coming here to see Cherrapunjee, because they learned about it in the school geography books. There was an opportunity here and the brand name was already built.

Here our people were looking at new economic opportunities and somebody was needed to tie all these things together.

In this situation we felt we could make a difference: we saw the potential on one side and we could link it to the level of the village people’s exposure, their education level — everything. We were trying to match the opportunities.

ML: What were their previous ideas about tourism? They were getting visitors before but nowhere to stay. Did nobody have this idea before?

CS: Those people they had the idea but nobody was willing to risk their money. Since nobody has started, nobody wants to risk whether it will work or not.

ML: And after you started here, with this building, how did your family and relatives take it? What was their reaction?

CS: In the beginning we had many hurdles. They felt that setting up a hotel people will get spoiled, especially the youth.

ML: Why?

CS: The hotels in the city will take anybody and everybody, just for money’s sake. But here we take only proper families, so in the first two years it was difficult. We couldn’t even pay their salaries.

DR: We paid them later, but they had to wait. But we told them we will not cheat you. We were not even selling 100 rupees, so they knew it wasn’t possible to pay in the beginning but they trusted us.

We didn’t have any readymade solutions, we didn’t have any experience in the trade, but we applied our minds and went ahead.

ML: That leads to my next questions on responsible tourism here. Tell me about your initiatives that you’ve used. Do all your staff come fom the village? Are they all Khasi?

DR: We have two who are not, and another who is a Bengali gentleman, but all other staff is from the village. They are Khasis except for one who settled here. But we are giving opportunities to people from here. Where ever the skill level is available here we are sourcing it here only. Where it is not available we are firstly trying to develop it here.

For example we brought cooks from outside initially and put them alongside local people to work together. Now, the head cook is from the village, and that is our idea. We told the village where we need to bring in skills from the outside but we will try to hire locally in time.

ML: Why did you decide to do this? What was the insipiration for all this? Why change your life?

DR: As I told you I didn’t want to oblige my senior on something as it was going against my conscience and I decided to find my own way. At that point if I do something it should not just be for making money, we’ll do something with a bigger objective. Here, I felt we were able to help people who were weaker than us — and we were in a weak position ourselves. By showing a way. By using our internal resources, because we didn’t have much financial resources. It was a dream only but we tried it out.

Now we are providing opportunities, we are showing to the villagers that they can do it themselves. We are trying to stress on them that they should be able to take care of tourists. Every house could have one room at least where tourists could come and stay and we can have other things with the help of government. Auditoriums, cultural museums, parks could be developed and so many things could be done.

ML: Tourism also means development and change that happens to the local community. Sometimes there are negative impacts. Social disruption that comes from that. How do you feel about those things, you’re talking about development but it’s going to impact the environment of this place as well.

DR: Initially when we opened we realised that this could be misused. Slowly we moved into families. That way we were able to check out our guests. Our structure is designed such that there is a lot of transparency into the entire working. By involving the community, the social checks are put into place, so that the corrupting influences are kept away by common effort.

ML: Carmela, tell me more about the feedback from the local community, and your family, relatives or friends think of what you’re doing?

CS: In the beginning it was negative because we had no tourists. We invested huge money which was not our own. Most of it was borrowed money. In the beginning it was difficult, they were frightened. The whole community said the village people would get spoiled and even the youth would be spoiled. Because they thought ‘tourists’ meant everybody and anybody will come.

ML: How did you respond to that?

CS: In the beginning we didn’t know how to do this, but slowly, over the years they know us and they see the people who are coming. Now they are happy, they are responsive to the tourists. They’ll talk to them, welcome them, and call the tourists to come and take shelter here.

ML: What’s the future steps of Cherrapunjee?

DR: The government has now realised what we are trying to do. And the people have become interested to take tourism as a vehicle to go further in development and create employment opportunities. Now the government has decided to investing money directly. They have decided to develop the roads and parks here. Most likely we individuals would not be able to invest that amount but the government will substantiate our actions by creating infrastructure around this place. They have also stated they will also help families set up one room bed and breakfasts and that will help to immediately boost the accommodation availability here.

Winners of the 2009 Wild Asia Responsible Travel Awards

The Sunderbans Jungle Camp is located on Bali Island in the remote southern stretches of West Bengal’s Gangetic Delta. It is the flagship project of Help Tourism and manages to satisfy many of the company’s philosophies and goals, while offering an exceptionally positive tourism experience.

See photos from the camp:

Photos are copyright Mikey Leung and Belinda Meggitt.

Interview with Asit Biswas, co-founder of HELP Tourism

We’re also fortunate to have recently caught up with one of the founders of Help Tourism for an audio interview. We invite you to listen in.

Listen to this interview in audio format:

Mikey Leung: Please introduce yourself.

Asit Biswas: My name is Asit Biswas. I am one of the co-founders of Help Tourism. It’s a responsible tourism organisation mostly working in the critically important areas and heritage sites of Northeast India.

We are especially working in sensitive areas like the Sundarbans, we are working in Arunachal Pradesh, North Bengal foothills which includes the tea gardens, forests of Darjeeling and Sikkim. We are also active in Tripura, in Assam and Nagaland as well.

ML: When you say ‘working’ in those areas, what do you mean?

AB: Working means our organisation sets up tourism projects in close partnership with the local communities. Especially in and around the cultural and heritage sites or in the wildlife areas. The goal is to establish links with the local communities, the heritage sites through tourism. We want to set up ownership of the local people and encourage them to preserve their traditions and natural heritage that they have.

ML: You mention linkages. What does that mean?

AB: It’s simple. We feel that unless you engage and empower the local communities as co-owners and/or managers of the tourism product, the tourism does not help neither the destination nor the people. So in the interest of the long-term sustainability, conservation and preservation, the local communities must be engaged not only as a host/service provider, but they must be allowed to have complete control and ownership on the infrastructure on this site.

Otherwise everything falls back. If you do not engage them with a meaningful amount of ownership then the tourism does not survive or sustain. We are trying to set up linkages through tourism so that the tourism can actually benefit the destination, it can generate direct income and profits for the communities. In the process the communities they are encouraged to protect their culture, heritage or nature, their unique specialties. It means engaging them meaningfully as an owner/co-owner of the properties in the interest of the sustainability of the destination.

ML: How does this differ from normal destinations in India? Compare your style of tourism with mainstream tourism?

AB: The mainstream does not recognise the importance of sustainability. It doesn’t recognise the importance of engaging the local communities as owners and managers. It is more or less exploitative in nature. It brings a lot of visitors who are uninformed or do not always have the concern for the people or the site they are going to visit. So in the long run it becomes completely one-sided. It fails to generate genuine long-term benefit for the locals.

ML: Let’s hear a bit about your specialty, Northeast India. What is making NE India such an ideal place to set up your style of tourism?

AB: NE India is very special in terms of its cultural and natural diversity. This particular region has the last true remaining wildernesses of the Indian subcontinent. Culturally it is very much unique and diverse. If you come to a place like Assam or Arunachal Pradesh, every 100 miles the landscape changes, the community changes, the culture changes, the food habit changes, the dress changes, so it is so unique. It is ecologically very fragile as well. Because of the unique juxtaposition of landscapes, communities and cultures.

Preservation of such diversity, both natural and cultural is of paramount importance. Tourism could be a very effective instrument of opening up the windows where the host communities can establish the relationship and friendship with the global community and can showcase what they have in their treasure. They can earn long term benefits from tourism and take pride from showcasing their culture and nature. If they earn the tourism benefit in a sustainable way it will also motivate them to preserve their culture for future generations.

ML: Let me ask you a difficult question, how much money do they make out of the projects? What percentage do they make? What kind of benefits do you supply?

AB: More than 60% of our revenues is directly spent on the locals. The balance is spent on administration, marketing, bookings and commissions to the tourism operators, etc. We create enormous opportunities for local employment because as a core philosophy we always try to use as much local items and supplies for our tourism services. In all our projects, the destination as well as our tourism outfit is completely and independently managed by our local community partners.

ML: These practices are not universal across the industry?

AB: Unforutnately that is not happening everywhere in our country, but the stakeholders are taking increasing interest in understanding the benefit of responsible tourism, and environmentally and socially responsible tourism. So we hope are hopeful that the mainstream tourism industry will take a lesson from these small practices and graudally we can spread up the benefit and message of responsible tourism throughout our country.

ML: Thank you Asit. I’m just sitting with Asit Biswas, he’s one of the co-founders of Help Tourism. For more information you can visit Help Tourism’s website or book their properties directly online at Travel to Care.com.

Travel to Care features several properties promoted by Help Tourism. Feel free to check them out on Travel to Care.com:

• Sundarbans Jungle Camp
• The Gurung Guest House, Takdah, Darjeeling
• Neora Valley Jungle Camp, Lava, West Bengal
• Maozigendri Jungle Camp, Manas

You can read more about the Wild Asia Award by clicking here.

Supported by ITB Asia as its corporate social responsibility initiative, the networking event brought together those interested in responsible tourism from more than 20 countries. Representatives from India, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore presented their initiatives in Responsible Tourism. The event also became a platform for a local artist Sarbani Bhattacharya to auction her art work that helped raise funds for Himmapagaan Foundation of Thailand.

As in previous events, the networking brought together people to share and learn. Young entrepreneur, Ardani Yahya of Edutours said, “If not for this event at ITB Asia, I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to interact with people focusing on sustainable travel. I hope to see more initiatives from Indonesia featured at future networking”.

The next networking event supported by Traveltocare.com will be coinciding with World Travel Market in London on the 9th November 2009.

All these thorny tourism development issues aside, the Chittagong Hill Tracts still remains Bangladesh’s best kept secret. As the country’s mini-Myanmar, it is more a microcosm of Asian culture in Bangladesh, a place that demonstrates the true diversity of the country.

Enjoy the photos:

[View with PicLens]

Travel to Care has one listed property in Bandarban — the Guide Tours’ Hillside Resort. Click here to learn more about this secluded property with facilities that are well in tune with the natural surroundings.

Terraced rice fields litter Nepal's landscapes..

Beyond all the shopping – and I did a lot! – the thing I treasure the most out of everything I brought back from Nepal was this incredible feeling of respect for my fellow beings. The Nepali people have to be among the nicest people on Earth. Having been born and brought up in India, I was a bit apprehensive about traveling as a single woman to another country within the sub-continent. It must be something to do with the heat, or the repressive, moralistic atmosphere we grow up in but I know from experience that Indian men can be a bit… forward when they see an averagely attractive woman traveling alone. Nepal being so close to India and one of the only countries that Indians don’t need a visa (or passport) for, I was under the impression that Nepal would basically be the same.

I couldn’t be further from the truth. The Nepalese have preserved the essence of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs in a way that Indians unfortunately have not. It isn’t only about the ceremonies and rituals – they seem to have really integrated the concept of respect, dharma and karma into their lives. You are always greeted with a smile and a hand on their heart, everyone humbly bows down to the other in a show of thanks and whether you are passed a packet of chips or prasad from a temple, its done in the same way. With a slight bow of the head and the left hand on the right elbow, in accordance with traditional Hindu custom.

[View with PicLens]

I met a young French girl in Nagarkot who understood exactly what I mean. Being a white girl traveling around India alone – and on a budget, she was tired of the constant catcalls, the requests to ‘please have sex with me’ and trying to hide her blonde hair. She eventually reached Nepal, which she traversed through out before getting a job in Kathmandu to stay back. The interesting part happened when she went back to France – only to find herself being subjected to ‘the eyes of the Frenchmen, these supposedly sophisticated Europeans who you can just feel strip you down naked in their minds… in Nepal, they look at you with the respect and friendship they would have for their sister.’ Needless to say, Kathmandu is now her permanent home.

And it’s different in other ways too – there are temples everywhere in Kathmandu. Literally. You can’t walk five minutes without bumping into one, some of which are centuries old. From large mini-communities in themselves like at Pashupatinath to tiny shrines that you could easily walk by without noticing (except you’d be forced to with the incense and bright colours that decorate it everyday). And this is their capital city. In New Delhi, or even Bombay, only some neighborhoods have the luxury of their own temples; modern and new ones at that.

And I realized that this was the price we paid for all our modernization and 6% growth in GDP. India too was like Nepal once – and some parts of it still are – but temples slowly gave way to traffic lights and ‘Namaste’ gave way to ‘Hey’. We follow the rituals but have forgotten their meaning.

The young, educated people of Nepal – mostly educated abroad and returning to see if their new democratic country has any opportunities for them, or better, if they can help in any way – are frustrated with the state of affairs in their country. They want freedom –from a corrupt government, from the Maoists, from foreign aid, from chaos. They understand that in today’s world, a nation’s freedom only comes from financial independence. They want India’s GDP, her democracy, her infrastructure and her political and financial systems that seem so appealing to them. And rightly so.

But I hope they see the price India paid to reach this modernization. I hope they remain aware of the wealth they are the treasurers of. As far as I see – Nepal’s number one industry is tourism. Nepal’s treasures are its pristine mountains, its vibrant culture, its strong women, its history and its unique location between India, China and Tibet. This is what has been bringing in the travelers the world since the hippie boom in the ‘60’s.

But Freak Street has now lost its appeal and Thamel is more like a giant bazaar. Now Nepal attracts the more sophisticated environmentally aware travelers, adventure sport aficionados, the spiritualists…the dollars. So it is in the hands of the youth (as always) to pave a new way for Nepal – to move with the times and approach modernity with a respect for their traditions, their culture and history. Maybe even show India how it’s done! It is not an easy task, but if you decide to go and travel wisely while you are there, you just might be able to help them see how.

——-
Interested in visiting Nepal’s best responsible tourism properties? Click here to read Simrit’s reviews.

Today I’d like to take you to Srimongol, Bangladesh’s tea growing region, which I’ve dubbed Bangladesh’s ‘little Darjeeling’ although the hills and fields here are of course not as expansive as those of our Himalayan neighbour. Most of the tea workers originally hailed from Orissa and Bihar, but were brought here as labourers by the British, pre-partition.

Enjoy the photos:

[View with PicLens]

Travel to Care has one listed property in Srimongol — the Nishorgo Eco-cottage. Click here to learn more about this local-run bungalow located next to a secluded stream..

That's me, on my motorcycle..

Greetings Travel to Care community!

Welcome to The Inspired Travller, the new blog site of Travel to Care — excuse the construction dust as we’re not quite done with the design process yet, but the technology infrastructure is in place now and I’m ready to begin getting feedback on the newest addition to the stable of Travel to Care websites.

I chose the name The Inspired Traveller because I thought the title reflected the people involved with Travel to Care, whether they be customers, travel writers, managers or our contacts. Travelling in a ‘green way’ represents a form of travel that is more friendly towards the Earth and the people we choose to visit. When we travel with these thoughts in our hearts and minds, we are hopefully inspiring others to do the same. I should stress this title isn’t permanent yet — I’d like to hear from you what you think of this title. If you’ve got something better we’ll definitely consider it.

For the geeks out there, we’re using Wordpress as the new blogging software. Wordpress is the world’s best open source blog management software, and makes it easy for travel writers like me to get very powerful websites online quickly and easily. I’m not even a professional web programmer but I can use the software easily, and so can you. Wordpress is infinitely extensible – you can add on photo galleries, user profiles, and a bazillion other bells and whistles (but let’s not forget that good, relevant content is the key).

In the coming weeks I hope to get the entire Travel to Care community active with this blog in some way. After many discussions with the Travel to Care management team we’ve begun targeting several ways to get Travel to Care more visible in front of the web audience – this blog is just one of those measures and meanwhile Gopi is refining our marketing plans to reach the ‘good travellers’ that are wanting to travel the ‘green way’, so they can find and book their holiday or accommodation with us.

More news to come soon… for now, please consider subscribing using the sidebar entry on the right.