Incredible !ndia

Incredible !ndia is an initiative by the Indian government to promote tourism AND it's a wildly successful campaign. The advertisements are incredibly alluring, they make me want to see India and I'm already IN India. The far more amusing aspect to this campaign is the t.v. ads featuring famous movie stars telling locals that they shouldn't hassle or rip off tourists as we are good for the local economy :) While my examples of Incredible India are a little less glamorous than the campaign, they never the less remind me why this country is so surreal. Take for example this snake charmer sitting in the Hampi Bazaar . . .


And this girl making a kolam. In the south of India many families make a kolam or rangoli, an auspicious art of decorating courtyards and doorsteps. Kolams are often drawn with coarse rice flour as a food offering to the smallest of nature's creatures like ants and crows. Rice flour is also seen as an offering to Lakshmi, who has the power to attract prosperity and to prevent poverty from entering the home. I like to think of these impermanent works of art as a practice of non-attachment.


Just follow me this way to one of my favorite eating establishments in India. A short walk through a banana plantation and you reach The Mango Tree, with it's terraced floor seating that looks out over the river. With very little arm twisting Mike agreed to eat lunch here every day! A thali lunch on a banana leaf with a mango lassi . . . followed by an afternoon nap and swing-chair lounging in the guesthouse garden.

Here is a real gem, the Indian ice cream truck of Hampi. Mind you, we were biking in the rural countryside and this truck came screeching to a halt just in front of us . . . you know, in case we needed ice cream. And should we have purchased ice cream, every one of those boys would have had a hand in it's delivery, seriously. - S. Mangosteen