EXPERIENCE FROM A JOURNEY TO INDIA – HOW TO ORGANIZE A TRIP TO KERALA

I and Vuong  went to India with my child, After three years: we wanted him to know this piece of the world for a single trip even within himself. Here you will find all the practical tips to organize a trip to Kerala with children

“Why India?” – “Well, why not?”

When we officially announced that our next trip would be in India, most of the reactions were rather skeptical (type, but you’re out of your mind?).

India is always associated with the chaos, the dust, all the worst that we have seen in “Slumdog Millionaire” and a probability of cagotto that bookmakers give 100% guaranteed.

Here, I must say, it is true, needless to say no. India is also the case, but not only. And there is India and India.

In 2011 we had already visited the north of the country before the birth of Memi, the classic tour of Rajasthan with Taj Mahal and the rest. An incredible journey but physically and emotionally too demanding, in my opinion, to be repeated with a treenne tending to hyperactivity.

Everything’s ready now!

But we wanted the gnome could see India, because it is a part of so diametrically opposed world to Europe that you can not put your feet at least once in life. Even if only to find out whether you love it or you hate it, or both things on and off.

Yes, because India is not simply a piece of land on the globe …

india with children-children – kerala with children

Reading the various guides in preparation for the trip, I came across this quote by Pierpaolo Di Nardo

“Do not you travel to India to visit monuments, museums, temples and monasteries. it does not travel to India to cross landscapes. Not only. India traveling to learn about the inner worlds; in the swamps of the mind, in the labyrinths without a compass that we carry inside. It travels to India to make a trip inside. A journey that is not seen with the eyes, but feels with the stomach and the heart. Because India is not seen: India feels. ”

A trip in himself that children can, in their own way also do, just find the right piece of India to let them explore … Welcome to Kerala!

Kerala, a region that loves children

My child on the Kerala’s beach

If I are wondering if Kerala is a destination suitable for children, I answer: no! In the sense that there is nothing for you if you are traveling with kids: there are no changing tables in the bathrooms, there are no car seats available, there are no child menus in restaurants, there are no baby activities in the typical tourist attractions.

If I are wondering if you can travel to Kerala with a gnometto having fun, doing thousands of interesting experiences and returning home safely without dysentery, I say to you, no problems!

A tradtional located market…

One premise: if you’re the kind of parent who uses the Amuchina handwashing each hour, you feel distressed if every 50m strangers take his child in his arms and pinching his cheeks was not even Cicciobello, that if you do not find the dough be anxious because the boy in the 2-week trip could starve … mmmm, well, maybe I were you I would estimate darkened destinations. Without criticism or judgment, but India is not for everyone. It ‘sa bit like the mountains in summer: either you bring or you stramaledici after 10 minutes to be gone.

If it intrigues you an experience that can make you amaze, frighten, excite, upset and sometimes you even turn the Maronites, to be taken for what it is and to live as it happens, well, why not try? In the end, beyond all, Kerala is really a simple target to be organized in DIY mode, economical, safe from the health point of view (no vaccinations are required and hospital level is absolutely comparable to the Western) and capable offer foreseen and unforeseen adventures you will always remember.

CAIRO – THE CITY OF CEMETERY

Any public a tourism destination has its downsides. Behind the romance of the old quarter of Hanoi will be the region’s slums or Phuc Xa area or under the Long Bien bridge, is not it? After a few days enjoying the sublimation in the old quarter of Cairo, I want to better understand the real life of local people or more accurately, their life of poverty.

Located not far from Salah El Din fortress is a huge slum neighborhood nicknamed “dead town”, so named because it was a large cemetery where local people residing within them. On arriving, I feel reliving the moments of suspense while watching a horror movie, like “Evil Dead” or “Resident Evil”, “walking dead”, or clip “Thriller” by Michael Jackson . Due to the population explosion in the capital and the lack of interest of local authorities to housing assistance, many families have moved to the edge burial ground. Every year, up to 250,000 people to abandon rural areas move to live in the hope this will find more decent life. Before I arrived here, I thought that I would not be welcomed by the natives. But the reality was different, I get the innocent laughter of the children playing in the cemetery, the women are the clothes beside the tombstone stone … I was even invited to a tea shop owner sit and drink with him, and he poured a round of Arabic which I did not understand what tissue numb … but I guess he should hospitable welcome strangers so new.

House for rent in their graves!

You should not think that in the burial ground, the living conditions will fail. Located far from my imagination, this neighborhood even safer than other neighborhoods in the old quarter of Cairo. While the building of modern Cairo tend to grow higher and higher, the houses here are not higher than one storey.

When thinking of the cemetery at the edge, I think of the neighborhood or the Van Dien cemetery, but the sanitary conditions here are very good, even better than other slums in the capital. Locals told me that most of the houses here are water and electricity supply. 80% of households owned a home for himself and flush toilets inside. Surprisingly television everywhere and parabolic dish antenna is not uncommon. And even more surprising is the organization’s very genteel urban areas: each a cemetery plot was organized as a separate neighborhood, have guards and “security guards” in collection of land use goods straight. Want to live next to a tomb here, people must have the tools that unify with the deceased’s family graves there. People close to the family home, the grave a little money and they also ensure that the tomb also have someone to watch to avoid theft.

If the “dead people” move their house, the live ones would move again.

Like it or not, those who live in town will have to go dead. Since 2001, the local government has planned to move all the graves here to rebuild a public park. In total, there will be about 110,000 graves will be moved to a new neighborhood, a city of more than 10km Cairo.

This plan is very expensive and offer no less aroused mixed opinions. So the people who live there, how will? Push them to go? … I do not believe that remuneration of the government for families here to please all. Living in a cemetery at least, cheap rent (only $ 6 / month) and utilities. Moved to the government-issued apartments will have to pay 200 usd / month and even there was no electricity and water. So what kind of life? And one more thing, the investor is for the construction equipment to move the grave to break away. The roaring of the huge influence to the peace of the neighborhood and especially the repose of the deceased under the ground. How is there something wrong with a conscience?