We
are Teun de Bok and Robert-Jan Baken. Together we form DAARI, a small
Dutch travel organisation. In close collaboration
with local charitable, social organisations (NGOs) we organise special
tours through India. It all started in the first half of the 1990s,
when we were doing our fieldwork for a long term research on
land
and housing problems in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
Both places are not generally regarded as prime tourist locations. Yet,
after having explored both cities and regions in the context of our
research we thought there were many interesting things to see and to
experience.
We were convinced, for example, that a walk through the whole sale
section of the old town of Vijayawada with its labyrinth
of winding lanes, along local temples and numerous colourful outlets
would be an engaging experience to any foreign visitor. Now according
to the average inhabitant of Vijayawada, there's nothing great to see
in the old town - except for the famous Kanaka Durga temple. And,
indeed, there is no mention of this place in any tourist handbook. The
nice things of the old town are those taken for granted by locals: the
traditional, rather 'clumsy' and congested environment; the sense of
old and firmly rooted Brahmin and trader communities, resulting in a
special atmosphere. The old town constitutes a different world. For
foreigners it is quite exotic. Moreover, it is a great place to buy all
kinds of 'everyday' South Indian odds and ends. If you knew where to
go, you could make a most interesting and varied walk including visits
to the flower market, the ghats and the temple - both overlooking the
mighty River Krishna - and a great number of whole sale
shops. On
the way you could have a sip of the best badam milk in town, a puff of
an instantaneously produced cigar at the tobacco merchant's outlet and
a tasty Andhra meal in a hidden traditional restaurant. When we finally
organised our first tour, we did all these things. It was a great
success. We stayed in Vijayawada for a week or so. This stay became the
heart of our tour.
We did not only walk, we cycled too, through
the newer parts of town, around hills with dense settlements, through
an urbanised village with a potter settlement, along irrigation canals
and lively popular neighbourhoods full of buffaloes. We also visited
the nearby village of Kutchipuddi, the place where
Kutchipuddi
(classical) dance originated. Nowadays it harbours a famous dance
academy which invites all its visitors to see students practising their
dance, showing their talents. There is no make up, no grand stage and
no routine performance for tourists. Although we had seen much more
glittering and more perfect dance performances, it was at Kutchipuddi
that for the first time we were deeply moved by Indian classical dance.
On
the other side of the river, Mangalagiri is known for its hand loom
industry. There are thousands of hand loom weavers. We saw
them
at work, weaving, preparing their warps in the lanes, dyeing their yarn
etc. Again, for local people, there is hardly anything interesting
about weaving, but for those (like us) who've never seen how fabric is
actually produced, a visit to the weavers of Mangalagiri can be
fascinating.
Kondapalli, near Vijayawada, harbours a settlement
of artisans who make colourful wooden statues. A bit further away, near
the old trading town of Machalipatnam, there are hundreds of families
engaged in traditional block printing, using natural dyes in an
intricate process of printing, boiling and rinsing. Both places are
worth a visit.
Visakhapatnam is mainly known for its port and
industry. Yet, it is an amazingly green and spacious town structured
around a conglomerate of erstwhile villages. In addition to an old
core, with winding lanes connecting various caste-wise settlements, it
offers deserted, sandy beaches, a graceful temple on top of a green
hill (Symhachalam) and the natural beauty of the forested hills and
mountains in its hinterland that is mainly inhabited by native tribes.
Visiting
such places while staying in typical local hotels and eating delicious
local food in popular local restaurants can be a great experience. In
fact, this has been acknowledged by all our participants. Yet without
the input of local social organisations, visiting these places would
only be half as interesting and fun. In Vijayawada, a local street
children project, SKCV, plays an important role in our activities. In
fact, ex-street children (young men) act as our hosts, guides and
translators. Not only do they show us their project, but they guide us
during our walk through the old town, during our cycle tour along the
hills and irrigation canals and during our visits to local slums and
the weavers' settlement of Mangalagiri. They give us cooking lessons,
take us on a boat trip on the River Krishna and show us their world.
In
the nearby village of Srikakulam (Krishna District) we stay for one or
two nights in the compound of a NGO working in the villages (Arthik
Samata Mandal). The accommodation it offers is very basic,
but
after having spent most of our time in cities and towns, the quietness
and simplicity of village life is overwhelming. The same goes for a
stay at BCT, a similar organisation, based in Haripuram, near
Visakhapatnam. Not only does such a stay offer us a taste of village
life, an introduction to its projects by its social workers gives us a
little more in depth idea of the problems and positive sides of living
in a (rather poor) rural environment as well.
In the green
mountains on the border with Orissa we visit an organisation working
through and with disadvantaged tribal groups (AASSAV). Through this
organisation we see a glimpse of what it means to live in these rather
secluded en neglected parts of India. What is particularly nice about
being hosted by organisations such as those mentioned above is that
they show us glimpses of everyday life (including its harsher sides) of
large groups of people in India, without resorting to gloom and
hopelessness. After all, these organisations actually do something to
improve the living conditions of the people in their work area: they
have founded schools, night shelters, hospitals; they have planted
trees and experimented with various income generation activities.
There
is no intricate philosophy behind our kind of tourism. It is
build upon the assumption that people who travel with us want to get to
know India, its people and the things they do in their daily lives. So,
we travel in trains and auto rickshaws and stay in typical Indian
middle class hotels or in villages (in the compounds of NGOs). We eat
local food and we meet a great variety of people. These are not only
interesting things to do, but they are fun, nice and/or pleasant too.
We don't want to isolate ourselves from the Indian world around us by
travelling in a rather luxurious cocoon in which everything is nicely
adjusted to our ways of doing things. That would only make us feel
uncomfortable. It would make the rather strange world surrounding us,
in which poverty is visible on every street corner, seemingly
impenetrable and threatening. By travelling the way we do we want to
bridge the unavoidable gap between our world and 'theirs' as much as
possible. By paying explicit attention to poverty related problems
(through our visits to NGOs), poverty is no longer an omnipresent,
amorphous and rather intimidating phenomenon that appears in the form
of slums, beggars and other kinds of destitute looking people. It
becomes more tangible and concrete. A slum is not just a big black
hole. It harbours various shops, workshops and numerous simple houses
and huts. Its inhabitants are engaged in all kinds of day-to-day
activities. Although they may have lots of urgent problems, they are
people like ourselves, with their joys, anxieties and care for their
parents and children too.
As mentioned above, during our tours
there is a stress on 'ordinary' things, on daily life, with all its
beautiful, exotic and harsher facets. At the same time we do pay
attention to phenomena which are commonly regarded as tourist
attractions. In fact, during our tours we try to come up with an
attractive mix of elements, including visits to famous temples and
stays at beaches. Our tours are not meant to be study trips. They are
primarily designed as special holidays with moments generating a
typical holiday feeling, moments causing a feeling of being part of a
new strange world, and moments of extraordinary encounters with people
working for the benefit of poor or otherwise disadvantaged people. They
are also designed to include sufficient moments of rest. We want avoid
packed programmes that leave no time to really be in certain places or
time to be lazy and let experiences sink in.
travel programme
We
organise our own DAARI tours, for (small) groups, as well as tailor
made tours, both for groups, couples and individuals. All our tours can
be completely or partly tuned to the specific demands of our
participants. While the heart of our tours lies in Andhra Pradesh, with
time we have expanded our sphere of action. We have visited (parts) of
Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, West Bengal and Gujarat. Our present group
tour programme is limited to only two tours:
The
architecture/ Le Corbusier Tour, a 14-day study tour to
Chandigarh,
Ahmedabad, Delhi and Agra in which we concentrate on the work of Le
Corbusier. The next tour will take place in the beginning of 2014.
The east coast tour
is a
special 4-week tour along the east coast of India - from Chennai to
Kolkata. This tour is organised on demand.
Previously
we have organised other tours. The decriptions of these tours are still
part of this website. They can serve as a source of inspiration for
travelers:
The
weaver routes, special textile tours which centre around
the lives,
work and products of the Indian weavers.
The Kerala tour,
a tour the heart of which is formed by a walk from the mountains
in the south-east of Kerala to the back waters in the south-west.
At present, the itineraries of two of our
tours (the east coast tour and the textile tour) have been translated
into English. If
you want more information regarding these remaining tours, please do
contact us.
During the coming years, one of us (Robert-Jan), will be
investigating possible destinations in Andhra Pradesh. Eventually he
hopes to be able to offer very special parts of tours for small groups
and individuals.
DAARI, travel through the everyday life of India
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