memories of journeys, magic moments of life, thoughts and dreams, anarchy and love!
Path through the “castle”, which is actually a small city inside of huge walls, separating the houses inside of the other parts of Jaisalmer. As the people in Jaisalmer told us, the people in the castle are living there illegally; they occupied the castle when it got abandoned long ago…and until now, they’re living there, earning their money with small shops, restaurants and through offering tours to tourists.
This magical place we found in Jaisalmer, in the old castle in the middle of the city, placed on top of a mountain. It’s just one of many shops we found in the castle while following the many paths which are leading to small restaurants with delicious food, homes, cafés with sweet smoothies, to viewing points and finally ending at the huge walls of this castle.
I can’t remember where exactly I took that picture, but it was somewhere on the way from Himachal Pradesh down to Goa. All together it took us around 5 days with the train to reach Goa, and even if others may have different experiences, I had only good experiences with train-travelling in India and actually enjoyed the days in the train, watching tbe landscape outside and being impressed by the huge variety of nature and landscapes in India.
That picture I took while we drove back after exploring some villages around Pushkar (Rajasthan). There were no other tourists at all, and I really felt like on a different planet, being stared at by the few people who were outside even it was around 40°C in the shadow. However, the landscape out there’s amazing, desert-like, but still some plants, very few lakes, grass, and endless roads,just sometimes getting crossed by goats and cows.
A lovely street dog and me, in Kasol, India, few weeks ago.
Sometimes I still wonder, how I ended up spending 4 months in India…as I had planned only two months, feb and march, mostly to do a yoga teacher course…India itself didn’t interest me that much, back then.
But from the first day on, it completly overwhelmed me with all the places full of beautiful, pure, chaotic life.
I still remember how thick the tropical air was when I left the airport, and this strange, different smell, the sounds of this – for me – new piece of earth…
I guess this was when I realized, that it would be damn different than my journeys before.
And so it was.
I travelled around, together with a lovely friend from home, explored, learned and mostly learned how less I knew because I were always staying in safe, clean and grey europe.
And I learned, that all my expectations how the people would be here were clearly influenced by stupid german media, western media.
So, forget all the western stories about this country and go and explore by yourself!;)
About how I came back to India…
I couldn’t get enough in these two months, feb and march, I couldn’t get enough of the nature, the mountains, the jungle, the sea, the fruitshops, the markets and rikscharides, the sunsets and coconuts, yogalessons and meetings with other travellers, culture and food, and all these people living here, and especially one of them, so that’s why I am here again.
Last days were kinda hard; we went away from every ‘safe’ space, away from our friends in Vila Nova de Cerveira, away from Coimbra, away from all bigger cities, completly abroad, sleeping in our tents or in abandoned houses, only hitchhiking or walking, and even if the usually short way took us almost a week, it was worth every second of it…and I realised that I really don’t need much more than little bit of good food, water and something to keep me warm now in autumn, and some lovely people around me, everything else isn’t necessary to be happy.
The picture was taken on the roof of an abandoned hotel where we slept and shows the valley of Penacova, a magical small city placed on and between some mountains, separated into two parts by a huge river flowing through….
Yesterday noon in Vila Nova de Cerveira, hiking up to the “Cervo”, and finally felt that autumn arrived…