Zondag 15-01-2012 Ruim op tijd vertrokken we gister naar Schiphol, met het idee om daar nog even rustig koffie te drinken en afscheid te nemen. Dat verliep helaas anders, er stond zo’n rij bij de incheckbalie dat er nog net tijd was voor een zoen en een laatste knuffel. Hierna moest ik meteen door naar de gate, waar ze inmiddels..... read more
India: Het land van Enlightenment & The Dark Ages
Vliegtuig in -Bots- vliegtuig uit: Dubai –Bots. Vliegtuig in –Bots- Vliegtuig uit: Chennai. De warme lucht,vochtiger, pittiger en meer bedrukkend -nog gevuld met zon van de vorige dag, gevuld met de luften van Indiërs, theeplantages specerijen en heel veel onbekends. Een onbeschaamd lange rij voor de visa-controle, alsof het drie keer..... read more
Toeristenvisum
Werkvisum
This is an interview with a boy I met in India, I spoke a lot with him and I made an interview of it. Here you can read the summary of al our conversations and what I learned from him. His name is Rajesh Mady, he is 26 years old and is living in Pondicherry for all of his life...... read more
Namaste allemaal!
Afgelopen zomer heb ik een reis gemaakt door India en Nepal. Wat was dat prachtig, wat heb ik veel meegemaakt, gezien en geleerd!
Als je benieuwd bent naar mijn ervaringen deel ik graag de link naar mijn blogs met je: www.waarbenjij.nu/LanaIndiaNepal.
Maar wat ik vooral met andere Wereldsupporters wil delen, is een prachtig project waar ik bij..... read more
Veel visa voor India gaan al in op de dag dat ze uitgegeven worden. Je kan 'm dus niet te vroeg (maar zeker ook niet te laat halen). Ook de periode blijft een verrassing! Ik dacht dat ik een 6 maanden visum zou krijgen (aangezien ik net over de 3 maanden heen zou gaan), maar dat werden er 4.
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Zoals ik in mijn vorige blog al schreef, moest ik twee weken naar India vanwege problemen met mijn visum. Ik ben samen met mijn vriend na een busrit van zo'n 10 uur in Sikkim, India aangekomen. Vanuit hier reden we met een jeep naar Gangtok. Dit was een super schone mooie plaats met uitzicht op de bergen, maar er was..... read more
De kleuren, aroma’s, smaken en verschillende texturen springen je tegemoet vanaf je bord en vanaf de eerste hap ben je direct verkocht. Een reis door India is een culinair feestje. Een greep uit onze vegetarische favorieten.
De veelzijdigheid van India proef, zie en ruik je direct terug in het eten. Zoveel verschillende regionale gerechten, ieder met zijn eigen specifieke..... read more
Can you prevent getting Delhi Belly?
Yes! And here it comes...
When you are travelling for an extended period in India (or Nepal, Mexico, Burundi etc.) the chance of getting stomach issues in any form is almost 100%.
Delhi Belly is just a term for stomach issues in India. It happens all over the world. Luckily I experienced only minor stomach problems which were solved by visiting the local (expat) doctor. He subscribed the right antibiotic (thank you travel health insurance!).
He also explained to me how I could try to avoid getting it again..
And did I succeed in avoiding getting Delhi Belly again? Nope, but knowing what to expect and where to get a (light) antibiotics cure helped me travel more freely and enjoy the teh local flavors. If you do get sick avoid stoppers unless you have to catch a bus.
Save travels!
Freediving Coaches of Asia
In my opinion, this is an ode to Jeroen, and in my opinion the organisation of the year is: Freediving Coaches of Asia.
The 3 missions of FCOA are:
1. to teach ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY how to survive at sea.
2. to teach freediving because those that get to love the sea will take care of it.
3. to train coaches so that when those coaches go home they will also teach their family and friends how to survive and dive.
Jeroen wanted to do something to help the Filipinos, what we both have in common. He saw an opportunity, since he was in the water a lot. He discovered a lot of people, were not able to float or/and swim. He decided to develop a coaches training to help people, float, swim a little and free diving (diving with weights and a snorkel and mask, that is your only equipment).
I experienced his method, in a 3 day short training to become a coach to become a freediver, with two people from Thailand. Even though, I can dive, free diving is something else. I can not hold my breath longer inside the water, than outside the water. Oh well. I saw and experienced the tools he developed, the people he helped. The coaches, who would train others. During a training in Thailand, he helped another girl swim. In three days, she was able to not be afraid of the water and swim. Amazing! And it is all non-profit and done with his great enthusiasm and passion. He is so inspiring, he never seems bored to explain the theory with patience again.
I cherish your energy and dedication. Jeroen is often on the move, he travels. During covid-19, he was stuck and finally arrived in India and there it is Freediving India fcoa.
So kudos to you! Way to go, and what a difference you make. Happy to be your friend.
How to find your spirit in India?How to find your spirit in India?
Before I visited India, I tried to find out what to expect. The common answers of the people who had been to India were: you either love or hate it. Even though I had a lot of travel experience, I was a little hesitant to go. I was into couchsurfing, and in retrospect, I didn't regret it. Unknown friends of couchsurf contacts, picked me up from the airport and helped me. What I liked in India (after a stay of 3 months from South to North) was especially the conversations about spirituality.
Spirituality refers to the human experience of connecting with something greater than oneself, seeking meaning and purpose in life, and exploring questions about the nature of existence, consciousness, and ultimate truth. It involves cultivating a sense of awe, reverence, and inner peace, often through practices like meditation, prayer, contemplation of nature, or other pathways of self-reflection and personal growth.
In search of different spiritual topics: I got curious about Auroville. Auroville wants to realise human unity, where men and women of all countries in the world are represented and live in peace and harmony. The community has to be a reflection of the population in the world, in smaller amounts of course. There is no currency used in Auroville, they barter. I stayed a little outside of Auroville with a couchsurfer, up to today Bunty and I are still friends. He gave me insight in a lot of challenges and issues in Auroville. An advantage of Auroville is that it is near Pondicherry, a former French town, which means baguettes and cheese. I stayed a little longer than expected, and had the opportunity to visit the Matrimandir (the soul of the city) viewing point and the Inner chamber. I don't want to spoil your own experience, but try to reserve a visit to the Inner chamber.
In the three months in India, I have been to multiple retreats and spiritual centers: Sivananda yoga retreat near Trivandrum, Bodhi zen center retreat in Madurai, Astrology in Udaipur, Hanging out near the Ganges in Varanassi, trying to meet the Mother (Amma), Baghwan Osho retreat in Pune (almost reached it, but got scared about the HIV tests and orgies).
I can recommend everyone to search in India for your spirit, through yoga, through meditation, through astrology, through interactions with all sides of India. It is definitely a vibe I love and makes you think.
Indian chapati recipy
What to do when in Diu? Borrow the flat pan from the hostel buy some flour and pick a nice spot for a campfire where you make your own chapati!
Fair is fair the local indian chapatis were way better, or to speak in Indian terms: Same, same but different.
Back in Europe though, these Indian wraps win the taste contest by far with the ones you can buy in the stores. If you can even find them in your local store.
INSTRUCTIONS
…and ready to serve with a delicious curry… Enjoy!
Ready In: 90 min.
Ingredients:
Indian pumpkin curry
Years ago, long before I went to India and knew anything about Indian cuisine, I learned to make my first Indian curry in New Zealand. It tasted terrible, nothing like the Indian curry with the delicious smooth pumpkin flavour I tasted for the first time in a backpackers hostel in rural Australia.
But… after many travels and try outs, this might just be getting close to that original taste….
Peel pumpkin and scrape out seeds. Cut into bite sized cubes. Finely dice onion and tomatoes.
Heat oil in a large frying pan until very hot. Add chilli and stir fry but don't allow to blacken.
Add mustard then saute until the mustard seeds begin to burst.
Reduce temperature to medium. Saute onion for 4-5 minutes until it begins to brown. Add tomatoes and stir.
Stir in turmeric and curry (only a little at first then taste and adjust if required). Remove chilli and discard.
Add pumpkin and mix well. Add a little water and simmer covered over low heat for 15-20 minutes until the pumpkin can be pierced easily with a knife.
While cooking stir from time to time and add water if necessary. The pumpkin should not boil dry but it should not be soupy.
At this stage you can add various other vegetables like cauliflower, carrot, green peas or even potatoes. They soak up the curry taste in wonderful way.
At the end of cooking stir in coconut and season with salt and pepper.
Serve the meal on an Indian steel plate, add naan, chapati or roti and a side dish or two and your in business ;-)
Ready In: 40 min.
Ingredients:
Political Pluralism, Public Policies, and Organizational Choices: Banking Branch Expansion in IndiaSummary of: Kozhikode, R.K. & Li, J. (2012). Political Pluralism, Public Policies, and Organizational Choices: Banking Branch Expansion in India. Academy of Management Journal, 55(2), 339-359
Data on the expansion of 94 commercial banks in India from 1948 to 2003 were analysed to test the proposition that political pluralism – wherein competing parties control the state and national governments of a nation – can promote business expansion. The results confirm that such political pluralism reduces the power of either government to constrain business decision making but that pluralism might at times led to unhealthy competition between parties, harming local expansion opportunities. The data show that, in India, banks selectively exploit political pluralism to guide their expansion decisions.
In each subnational unit, the federal (or national) and the local governments share government power between them. Disagreements between policy makers at the different levels of government often lead to a greater variation in public policy outcomes and socioeconomic growth among the subnational units.
Political pluralism: An institutional arrangement wherein the political orientations of national and subnational policy makers differ, in such a way that one political party may dominate the national government while a political party with an ostensibly incompatible creed governs certain subnational units.
Political pluralism makes it more difficult for firms or other organizations to influence public policy or gain preferential treatment, as agents endorsing competing prescription may thwart any such influencing attempt at another government level.
Political pluralism normally tends to check and balance the power of various government factions, thus protecting the interests of citizens and organizations, but in certain situation in which political competition is weak, political pluralism may have negative, albeit indirect, consequences for organizations.
Organizations persuade key agents of governments through efforts such as lobbying and forming coalitions. However, political pluralism makes this more difficult as organization would need support from more than one level. Political competition under political pluralism can differ from one subnational unit to another, requiring organizations to assess a situation carefully as they pursue their interests.
Systems encouraging fragmented government are so designed to avoid concentration of power in the hands of a few and to divide responsibility for governing among different government braches -> check and balance.
This is in federal systems more complex.
Organizations prefer to operate in environments that afford them greater discretion in their decision-making. Hence, political pluralism may signal a healthy investment climate for organizations. If so, they should tend to expand preferentially in locations with political pluralism rather than in those with political hegemony (i.e. where a single party dominates both branches of the legislature or both the state and national governments).
Hypothesis 1: Political pluralism has a positive relationship with organizations’ decisions to expand in a subnational unit.
Political pluralism in a subnational unit might not lead to favourable resource distribution if there is only weak competition from opposition parties. At the extreme, when the national government considers a state’s loyalty impossible to
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The seemingly impossible happens: Versova beach clean-upIn 2015, Afroz Shah, an Indian lawyer, started with cleaning Mumbai's Versova beach, which was littered with plastic and other waste. At first, he was laughed at, but eventually other volunteers joined. After 21 months, they managed to clear the Versova beach. Besides the incredible and seemingly impossible task of cleaning the beach, another wondrous thing happened. For the first time in 20 years olive ridley sea turtles hatched on the Mumbai beach. See this impossible change for yourself, and try to follow his example!
What It Takes To Run A Responsible Tour Company
Chris Way, co-founder of Reality Tours, takes us through his work with Smokey Tours in Manila and compares it with the challenges he faced in Dharavi:
'I’ve learned a lot during my time with Smokey Tours. It has been very interesting to help identify their main challenges and to compare these challenges with those that we have faced in India at Reality Tours.
As well as feeling completely safe, Smokey Mountain was not a depressing place to walk around; after visiting it for the first time, I came away with the feeling, just like when I visited Dharavi for the first time eight years previously, that this was a place worth showing to others.
Smokey Tours is an organization run by World Experience Philippines, a Filipino registered NGO. I got stuck into all areas of the tours side, both on the ground as well as the back office work. This included working with the tour leaders, implementing quality control procedures like questionnaires, updating bookkeeping systems and helping with management and overall strategy.
It has been great to be able to use the knowledge gained from Mumbai to help out at Smokey Tours. Juliette, as well as the tour leaders, has been very open to new ideas and suggestions, which made things very easy. I was initially there for 2.5 months, and have returned every year since for a similar time period to help out with similar tasks. It’s great to see the progress that Juliette and her team have made- tour numbers have gone up substantially every year and Smokey Tours has been #1 on Trip Advisor for some time now which is much deserved because of all their hard work and passion.'
Youth Empowerment project India
Yesterday I visited the youth empowerment project of Reality Gives. The program, taught at the Ashayen Community Centre located in the heart of Dharavi (Asia's largest slum), consist of English courses and training in computer & softskills. Its main goal is to provide local youngsters (16-30) the tools to improve their quality of life by continuing their education or by getting better jobs. Together with the local community manager, I lead a discussion on the challenges faced by youths in Dharavi. During this interactive session the youngsters created a list that states the problems they face in their daily life: - Lack of access to education - Vulnerable environment for children & women - Absent of laws and corruption - Pollution in Dharavi At the end of the session I got the opportunity to interview some of the students and was impressed by their motivation, courage and dreams towards a better future. Nasrin Khan (20) ''Coming here and joining this program I want to improve my English, so that I can raise my two year old son in ‘English’. This will improve his opportunities on a better life”. Shenaz Shaikh (19) ‘’My dream is that all children in Mumbai get the opportunity to study. For my self, I hope to find a professional job so that I can support my mother’’. To end, I want to thank Reality Gives for showing me around and support their vision: “We dream of a world where people from underprivileged communities have equal access to opportunities and resources.”
India: blogs en bijdragen door WorldSupporters - Bundel
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