Landing in the unmissable Ahmedabad, which is said to be both modern and traditional, we were welcomed by a really bad air pollution and we almost shorten our stay there for this reason. Finally, after a bit of organization, we tried to close our eyes (and our mouth), the air pollution peak passed and we could have a glimpse at this particular city of North India.
Honestly, we didn’t take enough time to really discover Ahmedabad and we only did a little sightseeing there. We’ll still remember our stroll through the muslim bazaar of the town-center, a lively mess, in the middle of which stands, like a concrete spaceship, the Prembhai Hall from Balkrishna Doshi (the first Indian architect who recently received the Pritzker Prize). Inside this animated neighborhood, the Jama Masjid is also an oasis of calm with its serene forest of pillars. Apart from that and Gandhi’s ashram (interesting but not spectacular), we haven’t seen anything from Ahmedabad. Nevertheless, we weren’t feeling bad to quit this city…

We could then start the stepwells route. Stepwells are architectural gems from Gujarat and Rajasthan, you have to imagine some kind of inverted temples, dug in the earth with a multitude of sculptures, shrines, pillars… Their role was to keep water in these very dry regions and make sure Hindu Gods would remain auspicious for the people living there. We started by the stepwell of Adalaj, almost in Ahmedabad suburbs which already surprised us with the richness of its architecture. Then, we passed by Patan, and while we were hesitating to stop on our way to the North, we had a look at the Rani-ki-Vav, an other highly carved stepwell of this region. Here, we almost had vertigo, discovering how deep, magnificent and well maintained it was (it was discovered recently as it was covered by mud for centuries). Finally, we didn’t forget the not less attractive sun temple of Modhera which is also hosting a superb water-tank with elaborated steps and shrines all around.

Full of symmetric and spectacular architectures, we could proceed to Rajasthan with its promises of unconquerable forts, unique temples, romantic palaces and… non-veg restaurants serving some alcohol (as in Gujarat, alcohol is forbidden and the State is highly vegetarian).
In Rajasthan, we did a sort of loop around Udaipur, before finishing smoothly our stay in the city. The surroundings of the most romantic city of Rajasthan (and certainly of India), are full of heritage attractions. We started with the Jain temple of Ranakpur, unreal show of white marble intricate carvings, then we admired the colored rural life of the adjacent valleys leading us to the unbeatable and picturesque Kumbalgarh fortress before trying to understand the legend and larger than life size of the Chittorgarh fort-city.

It was about time to end our trip, having some rest while enjoying the charms of a Maharaja’s life on the banks of the Pichola lake, going from one palace to an other… Udaipur has a wonderfull appeal and we almost forgot about it!

This short trip has reminded us how India is diverse and how these regions seem far away from our daily life in South India. It’s also the mythical India, the one of the maharajas, of the one thousand and one nights and other legends that we all think about when we hear “India”. We could really experience and feel the power of this History over there. An exotic trip then!… even for people staying in India all year long.

It was years since our last visit there so we were eager to compare what we still had in mind and the reality. Right in the taxi, we could again feel this particular vibe and energy, specific to Bombay, the “Maximum City”! We felt like countrymen coming to the big city. All is “more” in Bombay and as we always say, it’s the only city in India which really feel like a real “city”.

Apart from that disconnect compare to what we live in Bangalore, we were quickly recognizing everything we knew about Bombay and this feeling was just increasing as we were going down the city to South Bombay where the exhibition was happening and where we were staying.

Sassoon Docks are a very unique place in Bombay. Located between the affluent Cuffe Parade and the touristic Colaba, those docks are an enclave of traditional and fishermen population. It’s a riot of colors and fierce odors where you meet fishermen, coolies and prawn-peelers who are starting their day during the night and finishing it in the morning.

Having a contemporary and street art exhibition there was producing a great contrast and pushing different groups to meet. Exhibition was great and art pieces were rich, entertaining and very diverse. This kind of endeavor is also quite rare in India, so not to be missed.
For the rest, Johanne having a foot in a plaster cast and our son Noé falling sick, we limited our visits to the few neighborhoods of South Bombay. That was still an oppotunity to experience the eternal (but fading) charms of this part of the city: from the small lanes of Fort to the mythic Leopold Café, passing by Marina Drive and stopping to one of the Irani Café still opened.

We finally came back from Bombay with mixed feelings. We were happy to find again, almost untouched the city that we loved but also a bit sad to find out that not much was evolving (the subway being under construction between Colaba and the airport might soon bring a wind of change). We also know that the parts of the city which are changing fast are more around Lower Parel, but the South seems at times dumped, with a fading heritage.

Also, the fog, typical of this season was accentuated by a strong air pollution, restricting us from seeing the sun. And this advertising message, right in the context, from a bank, seen on a billboard on our way back to the airport: “Saving is like pollution, it’s only when it’s too late that everybody’s worrying about it”

PS: sorry to finish this post again on an “air pollution” note and sorry for making some of you worrying with our second to last post on the same theme. Since then, we’re checking daily the air quality in Bangalore (that we compare with other cities in the world) and we stopped being too much paranoid about that. Bangalore air quality isn’t that bad. So the time for an emergency come-back to France because of a pollution crisis isn’t yet happening for us, but we remain on alert.

Initially, that development and those changes were really exciting. Coming from sleepy and museum cities of Europe, we were fascinated by all this energy, those big projects coming up like the metro, the new airport, flyovers, new buildings etc… Today, we’re wondering. Is this development any good? The city is losing its charms and the pollution is increasing (we had a tough reminder on that recently).
The “green city” of India tagline is less and less relevant (even if big parks remain and there are still impressive trees on some roads) as the expanding city and the emerging middle class have resulted in a boom of new cars deployed in the city. And the process is accelerating. Of course, infrastructures can’t keep up with this pace, resulting in more and more traffic. Still, some projects have finally seen the light and we celebrated last year the completion of the metro phase 1 (two lines) after years of delay. This elevated metro has already changed the face of the city giving it a “world-class city” touch. Bangalore has even been ranked as the “most dynamic city” in the world.
So, quite fascinated by this city in the making and theses new landscapes, I started a photo series long time back about the main junctions of Bangalore by night. I haven’t done as many as I intended too yet but it’s a work in progress and I wanted to share the first ones I have. I’m trying to capture here the modern beauty of this urban development, sometimes scary…

Awakened at 6am, once again because of the construction site opposite to our home which is never ending (small building of 4 floors built by some families brought there from North Karnataka so it’s been going on already for two years), I grab my son, in his room, in tears. He’s been also awakened. I bring him in our room to try to make him sleep in our bed and save some sleep time, after all, it’s holiday today.

Everybody’s finally sleeping again except me. I grab my smartphone to try to read something smart without waking up everybody. So I open “The New Yorker” which is never disappointing me in that field. I stumble upon an article which is, for once, quite close to me, it’s about an American mum surviving in Delhi’s extreme pollution. She is describing an everyday life limited to spaces covered by air purifiers churning out fresh air round the clock and where it’s almost impossible to step out (for the rich class), while poors are dying of asthma crisis… I just slightly exagerate what I’ve just read which seems pretty true from the stories we hear from South India regarding Delhi. Right, we are in the South, and in Bangalore, so nothing to worry compare with Delhi. At least, this is what we like to think.

Small flashback on what happened to our small family this week: monday night, coming back home from work, I find our son, Noé, wheezing a lot while breathing. When Johanne, my wife, who is subject to asthma, is coming back, her analysis is more alarmist, we need to see a doctor, his breath is short, he’s not breathing properly. We head towards Manipal Hospital as it’s already 8pm and we know it will be easy to see someone at the pediatric emergency department. Once there, everything is going well at the beginning, auscultation, heart beat check and X-ray (we’re used to that, once at the hospital, they don’t hesitate to deploy all the services, as everything is available on the same roof and the more we do, the more we pay as it’s a private hospital). The shock is coming when the doctor check the X-ray. There is a big stain on his lungs, he doesn’t hesitate, it looks like pneumonia, we can’t take the risk, we need to do more checks, we have to give him oxygen… we’ll have to stay tonight and get a room at the hospital… Then, they start taking a blood sample and even put him a cateter, inject directly some antibiotics. All of this happens quite fast and seeing our kid with a cateter on his tiny hand is finishing to make us understanding that something bad is happening. The two following days are spent like every stay in a hospital: we’re just eager to be discharged even if they treat us very well at Manipal. Our son is finally getting again some good saturation of oxygen in his blood after two days and two nights. We’re able to go back home on the second day, beginning of the afternoon, even if we have to go back there three times a day for nebulizations. He wasn’t having pneumonia, “just” some kind of viral infection made worst by some allergy. They’re not sure yet and they tell us it could be a mix of cold-virus-pollution…

Then we’re thinking that, indeed, it’s been a few evenings in a row that the military zone, next to our home is burning some waste and it smells in our place. We were trusting the air purifier in Noé’s bedroom to be enough… When we come back from hospital, we’re finding once again the same problem and we have to go back to the hospital just after three hours. Noé is wheezing again. Finally, everything is back to normal after his evening nebulization. But the doubt is still there. What if all of this was really caused by the pollution? what if Bangalore wasn’t as safe as we thought it was regarding pollution which is increasing throughout India?

I’m reminding these ideas this morning, revived by this article on the nightmare situation of Delhi, by checking the different air quality websites (Air Quality Index and Plume). What if our dream of living in India was now becoming dangerous for our son and for us? We built our life here for more than five years: started our own company which is enabling us to earn a living along with our 20+ employees, co-founding of a French street-food venture, having a strong community of friends and above all, a multi-cultural life-style, comfortable, but with its daily dose of small adventures, at times exhausting, but that we actually love.

I end my morning browsing on Amazon, looking for new air purifiers. We’ll need to setup some more in our different rooms. There are even air purifiers for cars… I check that and then I realize: our car is an old Ambassador, Diesel which is highly polluting. To put an air purifier inside it would be ridiculous.

This is when I finally fully understand that it’s all our life-style and our future dreams for us and India which is at stake and doesn’t really make sense.

I wrote that without thinking too much, just because I needed to write it, right now. We’ll see if those doubts will remain or not in the coming days, weeks and months to come.

update on Sunday 28/01 : I wrote this post on friday morning (26), since then we finished the nebulizations with Noé and he is still breathing properly, so no worries, he’s good. Even if the questions remain of course…

We had a mixed history with Mysore so we tried to avoid going back to this city. But being the cultural capital of Karnataka with a rich heritage, close to Bangalore, it was too bad not to use as an easy weekend gateway.

So we tried again our luck last June, during the monsoon, taking the fastest train linking Bangalore and Mysore, the famous Shatabdi Express covering those 140 kms in just 2 hours (and yes that’s quite fast for Indian standards!).

Once in Mysore, following a friend’s advice, we rushed towards the Government silk sari factory (Mysore’s sari has a strong reputation) open for visits. There, in a deafening sound, we were able to discover all the steps leading to the creation of a sari, from the silk thread to the dyeing process. The whole experience was done in complete freedom, just slightly guided from one room to an other. Authentic and fascinated, we’ll remember for a long time the grid-protected part of the factory where gold treads are done for the finishing touches of the sari.

For the rest, we enjoyed the pretty limited size of the city and what appeared to us as quite organized and calm (compare to Bangalore) to walk freely into its streets and lanes. An opportunity to reconnect with this humble and charming India where shop boards are hand-painted, where girls are wearing jasmin flowers in their hair, where rickshaws are ok to put the meter (too happy that we speak a little of Kannada) and where we are welcomed with smiles and a moderate curiosity.

Still looking for new in Mysore, we found out about a second palace, the Jaganmohan Palace, formerly used by the Wadiyars (the maharajas dynasty of Karnataka). So, of course, this palace is less impressive than the main one, and sadly, in a poor state but it’s hosting an entertaining art gallery.
Also, now that we’re parents of a kid, we surrendered to a visit of the reputated Mysore zoo which is actually really enjoyable… and the train museum, really old but finally quite funny.

And just to refresh our memory, we visited again the Mysore Palace, which finally impressed us way more than what we remembered about it (even if the visit is quite fast, pushed by guards whistles’ to proceed).

This time, to be sure not to meet again the Mysore bed bugs, we stayed at the chic “Hotel Metropole” (Royal Orchid) which didn’t disappoint us, specially thanks for its delicious restaurant hosted in a great courtyard.

So this time, our Mysore weekend was a success!

For a change, we targeted a spot we didn’t know anything about except that it was 30 minutes away from the airport and that it was supposed to be more “commercial” than the beaches we usually go to: Benaulim.

We finally got to discover a pretty quiet area with family-friendly hotels and pensions. The beach, was endless, serene, stretching on a 20 kms coastline dotted by villages and resorts. Great for long walks on the shore. Even if we have to admit, we still found it less charming than the small south Goa beaches.

The other point of interest in this region is the fact that it’s really close to Margao whose surroundings are rich in Portuguese heritage. Small white churches and colonial houses are spread in the countryside all around. As we already visited the main ones a few years back, we went this time to a more confidential one: The patriarchal seminary of Rachol.

In the middle of nowhere, this seminary is still training students to become later priests, monks… etc. It was holiday time for them when we visited but one of the four seminarians watching the place kindly gave us a tour (while wearing a Bayern Munchen jersey!). Founded by Portuguese in 1609, this seminary got a eventful history with the different wars and orders passing by. It’s a huge space and it’s quite interesting to visit as it’s a mix of Portuguese heritage and small very local details. We’ve been told that the inner church of the Seminary is quite unique as it hosts some ornaments made of colored wood in the shape of cashew nuts for instance (one of the main crop of the area).

We also wandered around, in the countryside where we ended up visiting an other cute small church where a baptism was about to happen. As it happens quite often in Goa, but this time maybe more than ever, we didn’t feel in India anymore… more somewhere in South America.

So even if we still prefer the South Goa beaches, this part of Goa has some really unique charm. The Goa culture is stronger and that feels too in the menu of the restaurants which all offer local dishes that we never tried before (and which go further than the typical Vindaloo!).

Et pour les fans d’histoire coloniale, plus de photos du séminaire sur notre Flickr.

Munnar is a hill station within the Western Ghats and it’s very famous for its tea plantations, which have been first cultivated by the British in the 19th century. It’s also famous for its chilly weather when it’s too hot elsewhere in India (which was the case when we went there). The surprise was that we had also forgotten how beautiful it was! The best thing to do there is to find a path in the middle of the tea plantations and to walk, in this green paradise.
The only problem is that this place is no more a secret and hotels pop up everywhere. For now, that’s fine, the scenery is still untouched.

In Madurai, we just went to the massive Meenakshi Temple, which is a symbol of all the South Indian temples thanks to its impressive sculptures. From outside (if you can find a point of view from one of the nearby roof-tops it’s even better), the temple is monumental with its 5 colored Gopurams (towers) carved with little statues of Hindu divinities. Inside the temple, as it’s very often the case in Hindu temples, we were a bit lost. It’s difficult for us to find our way in this dark hive of activity. We had in mind a vibrant place with people eating there, people praying there, kids playing… This time it was more “peaceful”. Maybe we are now used to this kind of atmosphere! It also depends of the day of visit. As when we visited the temple was setting up for a huge festival.

We’ve finished our stay at the Gateway Hotel Pasumalai that we really recommend as it’s located on a hill overlooking the city. The view is amazing from there and it’s also a perfect escape from the buzzing city.

What we didn’t know before coming, what that Easter was, this year, right at the same time than an other local festival: Songkran, better known as the “water festival”. This celebration is the Buddhist new year and it is one of the (or even the) most important festival in Thailand. What’s nice about it is that one of the way the Thais are celebrating it consists of happily throwing water at each others in the street. We heard about it a bit before but experiencing it, in Bangkok is something special!

This festival, like many things in Thailand, is a big tourist attraction but it remains a very popular one among locals who are celebrating it their way: crazy and casual as so many other things in Thailand. So there are some entire stretches of avenues which are cut to traffic so that everybody can meet up there and participate in a huge and friendly water battle, but also, in every street, in front of their house, Thai people are taking a big bucket of water, a sound-system and throw water (while dancing) to whoever will pass by: pedestrians, scooters, or even tuk-tuk. We were in the city for 4 days and we attended (and sometimes participated) to this informal show every night.

Carrying a baby at this time is also a good way to espace from the shower as Thais stay calm with kids, but it also limits the amount of fun…

Apart from that, we were also glad to meet up again with Bangkok, wandering through its lively streets, small alleys, canals, malls, markets or temples. Even if this time, because of Songkran, many shops, museums remained closed for 4 days which gave an unusual calm atmosphere to the capital.

Even if it was our third time in Bangkok, we continued to discover new parts of the city, be it a new neighborhood, a temple (great views over the city from Golden Mount temple) or a restaurant (or a street-food stall which is more Bangkok style). This city continues to marvel us with its radical mix of modernity and tradition that suits it so well. We also specially appreciated the new highest tower of the Bangkok’s skyline which just came up this year: the MahaNakhon, a kind of deconstructed tower or sort of giant Tetris.

And for more pictures, here is the link for the Flickr album.

Sikhism is a pretty new religion (15th century) and quite unknown in Europe. And yet, even without knowing it, the cliché we have in mind when representing Indians is very connected to Sikhs people cause they are the ones wearing the wonderful turban on the head. They are also many to stay abroad so we often meet them in New York or London for instance.

To simplify (a lot), Sikhism is a kind of a mix between Hinduism and Islam. They have some funny habits like never cutting their hair (and cover it with a turban) neither the beard or always having a dagger on them. Because of that, they have some quirky exemptions in India: they don’t need to wear a helmet when riding their motorbike and they can carry a little “kirpan” (sort of little knife) when boarding a domestic flight!
That’s also a religion which promotes equality which is a quite unusual concept in an Hinduism country, rotten by casts system. For example, in Gurudwaras, the temples dedicated to Sikhism, people from every background come on a regular basis to give time and participate to the life of the temple. In every temple, daily free meals are served to anyone and everything (or almost) is done by volunteers. In the Golden Temple, up to 100,000 meals are served every day 7/24 ! It is a must do experience as the organization of this daily miracle is really fascinating.

The Golden Temple is really remarkable as much for the architecture as for the atmosphere of the place. We visited it during Diwali (a Hindu festival but still celebrated by Sikh people) so the crowd seemed very packed but still, the place was very solemn and fraternal with so many things to observe: contrast between the colors on the people and the white – gold of the temple, guardians of the temple with their lance and their uniform from an other age, Sikh families coming from all over the world, indian tourist doing “selfies”, believers bathing in the water tank, huge kitchens of the temple…

It’s also the only part of India where men looks as beautiful as women thanks to their turban, which match very often their pant!
Nicolas wanted to play the full game and had also a turban for the visit (it’s mandatory to get the head covered anyway but you can even get a real one from the shops at the entrance of the temple). This added even more sympathy from the local visitors who were anyway already dragged to us by our baby (it was, at some points even difficult to progress through the temple as we were constantly stopped for pictures…).

We also used the opportunity to be in the area to witness the Wagah border show. When the partition happened, this village was separated in 2 and since 1959 a tragic-comic show is organized for the closing of the border. Well, we’re not sure about what to think about this “entertainment” but still, it’s a lot of fun. Loud Bollywood music and danses, sale of goodies and gate ridiculously shaky on the Indian side. Perfect organization and (too much) seriousness on the Pakistani side.

We also finished our tour of Punjab stopping by Patiala, before heading back to Chandigarh. Right now the main interests of the city are either closed to the tourists either in a very poor state. But what we were able to see was already quite impressive and work is in progress to renovate the heritage sites. This place should be very nice to check in some months (years).

Link to the full photo album for more.