GOA AND THE BEACH

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Published at 03:43, on 22/11/2008, Goa
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UDAIPUR, SHIKSHANTAR

 

Shikshantar

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Published at 03:31, on 22/11/2008, Udaipur
Key words: udaipur

ADHARSHILA

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Published at 03:23, on 22/11/2008, Indore
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VARANASI

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Published at 03:13, on 22/11/2008, Vârânasî
Key words: varanasi

NEPAL AND HVP

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Published at 03:50, on 13/10/2008, Katmandou
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SECMOL second part

SECMOL second part

 

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Published at 03:24, on 2/10/2008, New-Delhi
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SECMOL first part

Images of Leh, the capital of Ladakh

SECMOL (Student Educational and Cultural Mouvement of Ladakh)

 

 

 

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Published at 03:06, on 2/10/2008, Leh
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MANALI, VASHISHT and the ROAD TO LEH

Arrived to Manali

After visiting few cities, we were looking for tranquility. We have realised the areas where are situated guest houses and hotels seem to be chosen to be far away from poor ghetos. But, even these areas, in the middle of the cities, where we can find stores, attractions, restaurants and all the people that are related to them, afraid us and gave us the desire to  find calm spaces.   

So, it is with that state of mind that we chose, when we arrived in Manali, to go directly to the little city called Vashisht, perched in the valley, where we could have a nice view of the whole Manali region. This city is called Vashist in honor of its founder Vashisht Muni, a wise man to whom are dedicated stone temples built there. In the city, there are also some public baths that are filled out with hot springs, which give certainly a kind of relaxed and hippie spirit to it. Vashisht also offers many ways to climb up the mountains. That’s why one day we followed a little path with a sign indicating water falls. However, after a few moments, we realised that there was no more path and that we were walking in the thistles... Obviously, we won’t have this kind of adventure after that and we will stay in the city until our departure for Leh city.

 

 

The road from Manali to Leh 

Before leaving Quebec, we had learned that the road from Manali (Himachal Pradesh) to Leh (Ladhak), that is actually opened to tourists only since 1989, could close around mid-september because of the snow, which is the reason why Ladhak was the first stop of our journey. However, when we arrived in Delhi, a tourist agent at the tourist office told us that in August and September the rains could cause major land slides which would make the road pretty dangerous (we understood after that the agent would receive money for selling airplane tickets from Delhi to Leh!). Obviously, at the opposite, the bus and jeep tickets salers would tell us the road was very safe… which means in India, you better use your own judgement in those kind of circomstances!  On wednesday September 4th, we finally decided to take the road from Manali to Leh at 2 :00 am in the morning, a 19 hours trip in a 11 passengers mini-bus. Hoping to get an experimented and safe driver we got a young driver in his early twenties who liked to put on loud popular music, even at 2 am! During our journey on the second highest motorised road in the world, many things surprised us. First, we where amazed by the beauty of the endless Himalayas, sometimes sandy and dry, sometimes snowy and blown away by wintery winds. Besides the beauty of the landscape, we have also been surprised by the different caracteristics of the road we took. Even though we didn’t cross any land slides, we found the road was extremely narrow (the equivalent of one way in Quebec), which didn’t stop us from meeting and overtake other vehicules, even big marchandise trucks! Let’s say this experience has been a little scary for us sometimes, and even more at an altitude reaching 5328 meters high, without any fences along the road obviously!!!  

Hopefully, we arrived safe in Leh on september 4th at 9 :00 pm! However, we decided we would take the plane back to Delhi for our return, which might be at the end of september!

Next destinations : Leh and the SECMOL campus    

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Published at 09:18, on 9/09/2008, Leh
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ON THE ROAD TO LADHAK

Travel light, we don’t know!

Leaving home for several months brings a lot of new challenges. In our case, trying to find a balance between bringing all the material we needed for our adventure and trying to travel light constituted certainly one of our biggest challenges we had to face. In fact, we have been traveling for only one week now and since our departure, there is not a day we have passed by without trying to give away any object, as small as it may be, like a belt, socks, utensils, soup bags or even a deodorant, because we have learned rapidly that this type of body parfume is not very useful in India! Finally, even if each object given away on our path use to take only a small place in our luggages and was not that heavy, we keep hoping that with accumulation, we will succeed in taking several kilos off our fragile shoulders!!! 

Delhi and its Main Bazaar : A cultural shock

When we arrived in the Main Bazaar district in Delhi, we immediatly felt a constant level of warmth and humidity, extreme weather conditions that made us sweat a lot by simply standing up without moving on that dusty and nauseating ground. Here, not even the shadow areas, not even the clouds passing and not even darkness can cool down this highly polluted and hot steam bath. Besides warmth and pollution, the high population density, the incessant horn noises and the insisting requests of the salesmen made this first stop a pretty desorienting transition, sometimes even a difficult one. Concerning poverty in Delhi, the begging, the high number of damaged buildings and the multiplicity of the small houses situated in the streets and on roofs would constantly remind us we are lucky to come from a rich and free country!   

Simla : A wonderful city perched on the Himalaya

From Delhi, we took the train to go first to Kalka, and finally to Simla, a city perched at more than 2000 meters on the Himalaya where a population of 144 000 inhabitants is living. The mountain views, the luxurious nature and the freshness of the air rapidly reconcile us with the hard moments experienced in Delhi. Situated on the sides of the mountains, Simla has a lot of british accents and is the host of many stores that have a western style. Living in a very confortable and afortable YMCA (4.50$US/day/pers.), we decided to stay here for three nights, which made Sebastien very excited because he would be closed to the big monkey population living in this city! However, this happiness rapidly changed in disenchantment when a first monkey showed him his teeth after he tried to photograph it, and also after a second one stole his glasses while he was sitting on a bench at Jakhu Temple this morning (Temple dedicated to monkeys). Hopefully, the temple caretaker rapidly gave him back his glasses before he had even realised he had lost them!!! Fiouf! 

Next destinations: Manali, Leh and Phey, where we will visit the first innovative educational setting! SEE NEXT ARTICLE...

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Published at 04:03, on 31/08/2008, Shimla
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ECOLOGICAL AWARENESS

SÄDAGÏ-OPENESS project is firstly dedicated to the discovery and diffusion of innovative educational models. However, in our opinion, the sensitivity to human well-being can not be substituted to the will of preserving the planet! In that sense, when we prepared our project, we chose to purchase, whenever we could do it, goods that had been made with a certain ecological awareness. Among these goods, we have bought organic health products, shoes made out of recycled rubber, and also organic hemp and cotton clothes. If you are interested to know more about these products, you can find some of the retailers web sites in the section of this blog named " They inspired us...", preceded by a " » " sign.

In addition, we would like to thank particularly Andrea Crouse who supported us in our commitment to be dressed in a stylish, colorful, organic and ethical way for this project. Thank you Andrea for your openess and your generosity that allowed us to benefit from your talents and your fascination for India. You can also find Andrea Crouse's "Gaia Conceptions" web site adress on the right section of this blog.

We must be the changes we want to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

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Published at 03:02, on 22/07/2008, Shimla
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PROJECT INSTIGATORS

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Published at 11:43, on 21/07/2008, Montréal
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PROJECT DESCRIPTION

SÄDAGÏ is an hindi word which means simplicity, honesty, purity... OPENESS!

SÄDAGÏ-OPENESS project is an adventure that has been initiated by two french Canadians who will travel to Asia, from september 2008, to fulfil a journey from New Delhi, in India, to Beijing, in China. Armed with a video and a photo camera, both venturers will visit several innovative educational settings established on their path. These privileged instants will allow them to capture the history of these settings, the living of their actors, as well as some snatches of their daily life. Being the witness of a perpetual OPENESS to various innovative educational environments, the pictures and the film emerging from the project will be used to sensitize citizens of the world about different manners of educating children. We hope they will also constitute a source of inspiration for every individual eager to set up innovative actions aiming at favouring the healthy development of human beings.

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Published at 10:56, on 21/07/2008, Montréal
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Where are we?