South India by born2travel.it

if you want to read the full version of the diary and look at all the photos visit:. 11. 2011 Bombay (INDIA) Finally we are in legendary Mumbai, formerly Bombay. A bit worn out after 18 hours by train… but we made it! In this immense city we are the guests of a couple of artists, our own age: Aparna and Abi. Bombay has always fascinated me… I don't quite know why… maybe for its gigantic slum, the notorious "slumdog", or for its twenty million inhabitants… 05. 11. 2011 Bombay (INDIA) When I timidly asked our friends in Bombay, birthplace of Bollywood, to see a Bollywood film, I meant at the cinema, not to find ourselves, shortly afterwards, on the set of one of the most awaited ones, while the famous Nasiruddin Shah and Vidya Balan were shooting the last scene of: "The dirty picture". 06. 11.

2011 Bombay (INDIA) We reach by train the famous "Victoria Station", famous also thanks to the film: "The billionaire" but above all because it is considered the biggest and busiest railway station in the whole of Asia! A short distance away there's a big green playing field where many little men dressed in spotless white move frenziedly: it is a cricket field, India's national sport! We stay a while watching them before jumping into an old colonial taxi heading for "Mani Bhavan"! Here Mahatma Gandhi stayed from 1917 to 1934 and from here began his great uprising, supported by the philosophy of "non-violence". What a strange feeling to think that this small great man had walked on those very tiles! Now this building has been turned into a kind of museum that manages to keep his memory alive.

"Haji Ali Mosque", a mosque dedicated to a Muslim saint who died during a pilgrimage to Mecca, whose body was later found, carried by the sea currents, in the place where this majestic mosque now stands. You get there by walking along a long avenue where, instead of street lamps, you saw many beggars who touched your heart. 08. 11. 2011 Anjuna (INDIA) While we wait for our night bus that will take us to the region of Goa, ever further south, we try to decide on our next destination. The idea of having changed destination four times, as well as not having yet decided either where to sleep or how long to stay, almost excited me… Paola Pedrini wrote, referring to Varanasi: "India is a punch in the stomach". This is exactly the feeling I had in those famous days… now I already feel like a different person. 09. 11.

2011 Anjuna (INDIA) We are in Goa! We will spend several days here in the name of the most complete and healthy relaxation! Morning among the stalls of the local flea market. I think I have never seen so many hippies all together in my whole life! From all over the world, of every age and of the most disparate as well as picturesque looks! a little later we were lying on two sun loungers and, looking around, I thought back to Kathmandu when I said to myself that this experience would be hard… Goa takes you back in time, to the age of the great Portuguese navigators: Magellan, Vasco de Gama… The names have remained those of back then; here the locals are called: Souza, Aguiar, Lopez, Pereira… There are Christian churches in place of Hindu temples. 10. 11.

2011 Mandrèm (INDIA) [Stefy]: "I write the diary and I think: I don't have to close my eyes to dream… I just have to keep them wide open. On our scooter… the air in our faces, the sun lighting the road, no thoughts in my head, my heart full of happiness. We travel along a road flanked by enormous palms, banana and mango fields, to reach paradise. Mandrèm beach really left me open-mouthed! A stretch of white, uninhabited sand, with the sun caressing us as we played among the waves; we were literally captivated by this wild and magical place". "You and I are one and the same: I cannot harm you without harming myself" - Mahatma Gandhi - continues on