I have now been home for a couple of days, mainly sitting at the computer writing emails. Friends had a small Midsummer party on Friday but I decided to stay home with my family. I called up a couple of friends to say hi. It feels strange to hear their voices! I will spend the weekend here at home and sometime next week go to Jyväskylä to check my new flat in Kortepohja and sign the contract on it. I will also meet Kati, a girl from Jyväskylä, who will go to Chandigarh, India, for her traineeship next Thursday.

I just got a call that 1 out of 2 of my lost pieces of luggage is being delivered home right now. Hope I get the other piece of luggage as well, since it contains one of my diaries and a lot of pictures on CDs. I am also still waiting for three parcels to arrive by post, containing a lot of books, my winter clothes I sent home from Kathmandu and the souvenirs I bought from Jaipur.

I feel that I am still kind of in between two different worlds. I am slowly getting used to living here again but at the same time I am sending a lot of emails to India to my friends and talking with them on Messenger or Skype. A reunion is already being planned for next summer

Because I came back about exactly the same time as I left last summer it seems that nothing has changed here. That might actually be true about my home, since things don’t really change all that much here Well the new barn is there and more cows are there but that’s about it. Since there are no (other) big changes, the whole India experience feels a little like a dream. Luckily I can use the pictures, the Hindi movie DVDs and the souvenirs to take me back to those days I spent on the Great Indian Subcontinent. There is also a big chance that I will go back there some day, but right now I am concentrating on my life here. I can feel, though, that the traveling bug bit me while I was away from home, and I am more curious to go to places now, more curious than I was before. I really liked my life in India, even though the work was sometimes very hard and the last couple of weeks at the job left a bitter taste in my mouth. Still, there were so many other things there that put any difficulties I experienced in their shadow. I am damn happy that I had the courage to go there. I can now see which things in my old life I don’t miss at all. It is very easy to get stuck on something and be somewhat happy with that as long as you don’t know about anything better. I have also seen people who are much, much worse off than I am or anybody in Finland is. I am sure it makes me see things differently and appreciate my life in Finland much more.

So… all in all it was a great experience and I don’t even want to see it as something that as ended. Instead I want to think that it is part of an ongoing process of personal growth and finding my true potential. And I think I might just go back to India some day. It took my friend Andrei seven years to go back even though he was planning to come the year after his first trip. So I won’t make any promises about when I will be there. I have time.

On Monday I went to the office where I used to work to ask for a receipt of my salaries for the Finnish tax officials. I also went to Koti bazaar and got myself a fake Adidas sports bag to put some stuff in. Even after buying this new bag I still had to go to the post office to send a 9kg parcel to Finland. Yesterday night we had a farewell dinner at Angeethi, a nice North Indian restaurant on road number 1, opposite to Fusion9 and upstairs to Barista, in the Reliance building. Today I will go buy a couple of DVD’s for German trainees who were here last year and who made a small appearance in these movies. So I have to go to the post office again, but it won’t be too much of a trouble.

I am happy about going home. In the last couple of months I got very used to being a traveler and I will probably miss that lifestyle when I get back to the chores of normal life back in Finland. On the other hand I was homesick at times too. I missed sauna, chocolate, coffee, my family and friends and our beautiful summer cottage.

I will spend Midsummer at home with my family. The weekend after that is Saimaa Summer, a traditional summer event organized by one AIESEC committee in Finland. The weekend after that I will throw a house warming party in my new small flat in Kortepohja, building D. I will be back working in my old job starting from July 3. The Finnish summer is there, my friends are there, my bicycle and badminton racket and everything are there. And I will stay for a while now in Finland itself only.

It was a truly wonderful year that I spent here in India. I learned and experienced so much that I can really call this an eye-opener for me, a very educating and enlightening journey. I met tons of people on the way and that is the one thing you don’t get if you only sit at home in your familiar comfort zone. I met people with opinions, life experiences, expectations, dreams, strengths and weaknesses totally different from mine. That is the truly educating experience you get when you are abroad. The people I met here were practically without exception open-minded, brave, positive, social and adventurous. I loved spending time with them and I hope I managed to give also them something in return. I made some very good friends here and I want to see them later too, sooner or later.

I will write the last posts to this blog once I get back to Finland. I want to write about my experiences after coming back, if it really is the kind of a shock I have heard others talk about. This is it for now. I need to run out to do a few more things today and then spend some time here in the flat with these wonderful people. Then it is chalo Finland!

I went trekking to Langtang national park, quite close to Kathmandu (only 7-10 hours by bus). I went there together with Andrei and Henrik, whom we met accidentally in Kathmandu and who was also planning to go to Langtang. So why not go together. We rode to the starting point of the trek on the roof of the bus. It was not exactly the most comfortable option but we did it anyway, just for the experience. It was alright at first, I found a comfortable position and the weather was great, but it all changed a little as more people got there and it really changed when they loaded three cages full of chickens up there Anyway, it was for the experience.

I was still not feeling 100% OK the night before the trek was about to start, but everything went fine except for some “loose motions” in the stomach during the first couple of days. We had very good weather for the most part of the trek, which is very fortunate considering it is basically rainy season here. Me and Andrei took full advantage of the tea houses along the trekking route, stopping every once in a while to have a cup of tea or a little bite to eat. Henrik, on the other hand, was more concentrated on getting the trek done in good time, and he proved out to be too fast for us. We met in the last stop of the trek when we arrived there and he was already beginning to go back.

I have attached a couple of pictures from the trek here. The rest can be found in the gallery, along with a few pictures from Kathmandu.

I will fly from Kathmandu to Delhi in just a few hours. I have read that it is terribly hot right now in Delhi (as well as in the whole northern India and also Pakistan). The heat wave has killed more than 100 people in India alone. Luckily the forecasts are now promising a little cooler weather (only (!) 40 in Delhi). In Delhi I will stay with a friend for a couple of days. Then I will fly to Hyderabad, on Saturday or Sunday. I will meet my old friends there and have a bye-bye dinner on Tuesday. Then it is time to pack all the stuff and get on the plane to Finland on June 21.

I have only three weeks left and then I am back in Finland. Time really goes fast. I will do this one trek and then possibly fly to Delhi to see a friend and then to Hyderabad to pack my stuff, have a farewell dinner with the others and then go home. I am quite ready to go now actually. 11 months is a long time to be away from home.

I am trying to find a flat in Jyvaskyla and a good friend of mine has been helping me with this. There is a small double flat on Puistokatu (Park street) that interests me at the moment. I have been trying to send an application for a student flat in Kortepohja for a couple of times but they always fail to receive it. It would be cheap to live there and there would be a lot of friends around, but then again a flat closer to the center would be nice, especially one that has not been inhabited by tens of students before me, like the flats in Kortepohja.

Sikkim is a state of mountains, Buddhist monasteries, border disputes and great high-altitude treks. China has not yet recognized the borders of Sikkim so it remains a disputed region even today. Foreigners are subjected to strict rules which limit the stay in the area to 15 days (which you can extend a few times, maximum being 60 days if I remember right). You can do really great trekking in the region but for all expect one trek you need permits, a guide and if you can afford it also yaks and porters. I did not want to spend 30 USD a day trekking so I did it the cheap way: no yaks, only a guide and one porter and our own food which we also cooked (usually) ourselves. I did the Goecha La trek, which goes as high as 4950meters, together with a friend I had met previously on the Sandakphu trek here in West Bengal. He has a cooker so we could prepare our own meals. It was a good way to save a lot of money, but we are now quite bored of instant noodles Anyway, the trek was really amazing and hard enough to really give you the feeling of trekking. We spent 7 days on the trek, sleeping in trekkers’ huts, eating our noodles and admiring the amazing views. The same high mountain I earlier saw from a far on the Sandakphu trek, Khangchendzonga, was now right in front of our noses, after the difficult climb up to 4950 meters. The last couple of kilometers we had to walk in snow about 10 cm deep, which felt absolutely fantastic since I have not seen any snow in about 14 months.

Now I am spending two nights in Darjeeling (again) before heading to Nepal. We were recommended one trek close to Kathmandu by a couple of people who had just been there. I will probably go do that with Andrei and then see how much time I have. I could go through southern Nepal to Uttaranchal in India and perhaps meet a friend from Delhi in Rishikesh. Anyway, I now have exactly one month left in India (and/or Nepal) and I don’t want to go down from the mountains anymore after experiencing the cool climate, clean air and wonderful people of the north.

On Monday I went on a five nights long trek in the mountains. I met a couple of other trekkers on the jeep on the way to the starting point of the trek and then did most of the trek with them. The route went up to 3660 meters where it was really cold but the views were great as well. We were really lucky to get clear weather almost throughout the whole trek. We were able to see the 3. highest mountain in the world, Khangchendzonga, very well and even Mount Everest from a far! We also saw a lot of rhododendrons, mountain flowers, many of which are as high as trees.

This day I will spend just relaxing and getting over the trek. Tomorrow I will go to Sikkim, which is the state just north of Darjeeling. After that I am planning to go to Nepal and maybe do the Annapurna trek. North India would be a very interesting place to visit, let’s see how I have time for that.

Go see more pictures from Kolkata and Darjeeling as well as the Sandakphu trek in the gallery.

I spent a few days in Delhi, meeting up with a friend I had first met in Gujarat, doing some sightseeing and eating well. I liked the better part of the city, that is, the wide streets andboulevards and restaurants in Connaught Place and down to Khan Market. The Old Delhi with its narrow alleys and buzzing bazaars are interesting, but since I am not a big shopper I don’t really have anything to do there except watch the Indian life go by. I went through the most important tourist sites and got fed up with sightseeing soon. I left Delhi and went to Rajasthan.

This time of year the touristy Rajasthan is still rather touristy but less so than in the winter months. It is now very very hot, which made the trip there a little exhausting. In Jaisalmer I stayed inside the big fort and did a camel safari in the desert. It was very windy at night so in the morning I found myself covered in sand From there I went to Jodhpur, which I found just too crowded and hot to stay very long, so I just settled for visiting the fort, which is actually well worth the visit.

After Jodhpur I went to the most romantic city in Rajasthan, Udaipur. Part of the Bond film ‘Octopussy’ was filmed here. Many restaurants show the movie every night and I also got to see it once. It was very funny to see a Western film set partly in India after spending 9 months in the country! Oh and I was sick again, but only for a day.

The most fun in Udaipur I had, ironically, outside the city. I rented a motorbike and went both south and north of the city. In the south I did not see much. I went to see a huge artificial lake but ended up driving alongside it and came back to Udaipur along a road that was not on my map. But it was great fun! The next day I went north to see a big fort. Also this fort was amazing as so many others I had seen so far. I drove to the fort through a surprisingly green country side and I sat by the side of the road for a half-hour just looking at farmers pulling plows with cows and rotating a water pump with cows. Extremely relaxing.

From Udaipur I went to Pushkar, which is supposed to be a very ‘shanti’, meaning relaxed, place. It is a small town created around a holy lake. There are a lot of cows, holy men, hundreds of temples and a lot of souvenir shops. Not very relaxed, I thought, and stayed only one night. I met some really nice people there though and went to Jaipur with them the next day. I was looking forward to Jaipur, the pink city, but was a little disappointed to find that it is not very pink, it is very congested and also this time of year very hot. It was 44 degrees there for a couple of days. Luckily the hotel had a swimming pool on the roof. I also managed to buy a lot of souvenirs, which I sent home from Delhi a couple of days later.

After Jaipur I went to Delhi (or Gurgaon actually, close to Delhi) to see a friend. Then I took an over-crowded night train to Varanasi, probably the holiest Hindu place in the world. The train there (going towards Kolkata) was so packed that I had to sleep on the floor in sleeper class. It was not so bad. I only saw one cockroach and I was not stepped on badly I managed to sleep a couple of hours and then a couple more in the morning. I liked Varanasi a lot once I had gotten out of the train station and through the horrible traffic to the Ganges river. The ghats along the river were very nice to walk along and it really felt like the ‘real’ India that is not so visible elsewhere in India. Sure, there are hundreds of ads for restaurants, yoga and music schools and hotels painted on the stone walls on the ghats, but that did not bother me much. You can not really expect total non-commercialisation anywhere in India, even inside temple areas! Again, I met nice people and decided to stay for a second night. The narrow alleys spreading out from the ghats are very interesting to walk along. There is so much to see wherever you look that it is overwhelming. I also took a boat ride on the Ganges in the morning at around 6 o’clock. There werealready a lot of people at that time taking a bath, performing pujas for Mother Ganga and just enjoying the cool morning air and the refreshing (?) river water.

After Varanasi I arrived to Kolkata, just this morning. I got a room and did some sightseeing. This city sure seems to be as congested as I had read earlier. I have not seen much poverty though. I think tomorrow I have to venture out a little, maybe take the metro through the city and go explore a little. Everybody is saying that this city is very dirty and poor and I will try to see if that is really true.

I will meet a friend here on Wednesday and we will go together to Darjeeling, in the state of West Bengal. It is already in the mountains and not far from the state of Sikkim, where you can trek on the foot of the third highest mountain in the world. And I will also be very, very close to Nepal, which will be my next stop after Darjeeling and Sikkim. A friend I met in Jaipur is now in Darjeeling and she told me that I will definitely need a sweater there because it is so cold! She also said it is a bit rainy, so a rain coat is not a bad idea either. Amazing after months of heat and no rain!

My first stop was Junagadh, a small city with a big fort and a high mountain, which is very important for the Hindus. I climbed all the way to the top to see the sunset, passing by holy men with long scrubby beards performing pujas (ceremonies) in the temples along the way.

After one night in Junagadh I went to the Sasan Gir lion sanctuary. I arrived conveniently about an hour before there was going to be the next jeep safari into the sanctuary. The lions in this sanctuary are Asiatic lions which are in many ways different from their cousins in Africa. This is the last place on earth where these Asiatic lions live. I went on the safari with a Dutch couple who had already done three safaris without spotting any tigers. I was really lucky, since we managed to see lions on this safari! It was only when we started coming back to the town that the guide spotted a baby lion, about 1,5 years old, lying on the rocks in a dry river. The guide went around to the forest left of the baby lion and found the mother hiding in the bushes. We all got to go see it as well, from a safe distance of course. My first wild lions!

I was happy to have seen lions and to get to continue from Sasan the next day, as there is not much to do there. I even got a free ride from the Dutch couple to Diu! So great. On the morning before we left I still had time to see the crocodile breeding centre and the nature museum.

I arrived in Diu after a couple of hours. Diu is a small island on the southern coast of Gujarat, connected to the main land by a wet, salty strip of land. It used to be a Portuguese colony (just like Goa) and there is still a lot of that influence left there. The alcohol restrictions of Gujarat don’t apply here, so there are many bars and liquor shops here. My hotel in Diu was one of the most atmospheric ones I have been to so far: the rooftop of an old church. There is nothing like watching the sun go down from the roof of a big, old church, with a small, quiet town spreading out beneath you and the sea beginning from where the town ends. And top this off with a delicious home-cooked buffet dinner at the house of lovely old couple. One of the best meals I have had in India. The husband is from Goa and his wife is from Diu and of Portuguese descent. And oh boy can they cook! We had carrot rice, potatoes, barracuda, calamari, tuna… all you could possibly need.

Diu has good beaches too, not like the best ones in Goa or Kerala, but I got a good tan anyway and swam a lot. Oh, and I saw big turtles as well I had a scooter which is more than enough to go around the whole island of Diu in less than an hour. On the way I stopped on the beaches, in a sea shell museum, a fishing village (it stinks!) and a restaurant where I had the best tuna salad I have had in India, or actually the best salad of any kind I have had here really. Excellent, just excellent.

From Diu I got up to Ahmedabad and from there by train to the centre of India, Nagpur, to see a friend from Hyderabad. Sadly, I had to stay here longer than expected because I got really sick (stomach problems and a fever of almost 40), but I am getting better now and planning to take a train up towards Delhi tonight. I will stop in a couple of places before Delhi, including Agra and Taj Mahal. After Delhi my plans are vague, but I will surely visit Rajasthan and then travel east.

My first full day in Bhuj I spent with Allison and Lloyd (both from USA) visiting some villages north of Bhuj and getting to know the different kinds of handicrafts that people      there create. We saw weaving, embroidery, woodwork and rogan art, which is both a unique and nearly extinct art form. We met a lot of the village people and with our guide who knows their language (they speak their own language called Kutchi) we were able to discuss with them. Allison is doing a “world-wide” study on tattoo art and she was very interested in the tattoos that the village people here have. The women (mostly the older ones, young people are not into tattoos so much) we met in the villages had loads of tattoos on them. You can see some in the pictures I took.

The next day I had a motorbike (which I did not give away until today) and I drove to Anjar, a village South-West of here. Our guide from the previous day is from there and he took me to see a tailor who would be able to get me a maldari outfit, just like the one all the nomadic people here wear. In the evening me and Lloyd went to a wedding in one of the villages where we had been the previous day. It was a great experience and it also felt a lot more authentic than the wedding to which I had been in Hyderabad many many months ago (time just flies, doesn’t it…). We did not get much sleep though since we slept practically outside along with many other guests while drumming and dancing went on right next to us until dawn.

On the third day I did not do much (= no sleep), but the next day I rode up north from Bhuj to the village of Kuran, which is a tiny village really close to the border of the Great Rann (behind which is Pakistan). Apparently this village also had suffered in the 2001 quake as there was a big plaque by the side of the road dedicated to the kind individual who had financed (so I imagined) the relocation of the whole population of the old village to this new spot.

Also the next day I rode, but this time to the south to Mandvi, which is a town by the Arabian Sea (Gulf of Kutch). It has two big sights: a ship-building yard where huge wooden ships are being built by hand, and a grand palace by the sea. The ship-building     was really amazing and so was the palace. The guards allowed me to stay on the roof of the palace long enough to get to read a few pages of my book and to admire the setting sun.

Yesterday I did my longest (and last) bike ride when I went to Lakhpat, in the far North-Western corner of Kutch (and India). Lakhpat is a cool place because it is an ancient fortified city that used to reside by the Indus river. In an earthquake the river changed its course and is now west of Lakhpat on Pakistan’s side.

This day I am spending taking care of some issues, such as writing this blog, having some pictures printed (need to send some back to the wedding people) and so on. I also went to the post office and sent a package home containing my maldari outfit and a couple of shawls and stuff for presents. Hopefully the parcel gets home safely, since the three copies of the postal information papers were taped to it rather flimsily Fortunately the same information is written on the parcel itself with a marker.

Tonight I will take a night bus to Junagadh in southern Gujarat. From there I might go to see some lions in the Gir sanctuary (you are lucky if you see them only with one trek in there though) and then go to the coast to Diu, which is a bit (but only a bit) like Goa: an old Portuguese colony. After this I don’t have a clear plan, except to be in Nagpur on the 23. to see my girlfriend.

Pictures: in the gallery. Take care. Think happy thoughts

The resort where I stayed in the sanctuary is right on the edge of the desert. I lived in a mud hut, which resembles a lot the huts in which the local village people live. I had romantic oil lamps I could bring to the stone porch of the hut to be able to write and read there. On my first day in the resort I had already visited the salt fields with the owner of the resort in his jeep. The second day I felt too sick (= flu) to go walking in the desert. I just ate a late breakfast and did a cost-estimation for a friend for a two-week trip to Hampi, Goa and Kerala. After this I finished a book and started reading a new one. I was supposed to go exploring the area in a jeep again at 4.30 so I thought it would be better to rest before that. Besides, it was terribly hot outside and the clay hut was comfortably cool.

I was woken up from my sleep by the resort’s general do-it-all help-in-any-way-I-can boy who came to ask if I want some tea. I felt I needed to re-freshen and re-energize myself so I asked for chai. I drank it up and soon after that the driver came to get me. He asked if I’m ready and I said yes. After this I spent five minutes collecting the stuff and packing my day-trip-bag. We left and I soon found out that I would have to resort to speaking either Hindi or Gujarati, both of which I do not speak at all. These people start learning Hindi at school before English and once again I regretted not having learned Hindi. Then again, for the first three months in India I was thinking more about going back home than learning the language

The first stop was the water tank. I saw a few birds and a big herd of cows, maybe a hundred animals in total. Two men were guiding the herd. The other man was dressed in white. I assumed him to be maldari, who own maybe 50-200 cows and move around with the herd during the day. Maldari are dressed in white, beautifully ornamented clothing. They also wear silver jewellery, both men and women. Next we started heading towards the area where I had already been yesterday. I knew what I would see and there was no point in trying to tell the driver I had already been there. I sat and tried to make the best of it. Anyways, I was sure I would see something new, because India is like that: just one visit does not give you all that the place has to offer. We saw some wild asses and then we went to see an agaria, a salt worker. He was working on his field of salt as we came and when we stopped he came to greet us, feeling most likely happy about getting a reason to have a break.

Nowadays I expect to see something miraculous everyday. At least one thing every day has to make an ever-lasting impression on me. This time this experience came in the form of a young girl, maybe 6-7 years old, who walked to us around the salt field from the other side where there was a simple hut. The girl was holding an iron mug in her hand. She was wearing a bright red dress and light colored pants. She had no shoes. Her black scrubby hair reached her shoulders. She came towards us. I started getting my camera ready. She approached the salt worker and handed him the mug. I could not help thinking that I had just seen something utterly sweet. I asked the men if I can take a picture of the girl and they said OK. I also mimicked in my usual way to the girl saying “photo, photo” and she did not seem to object. The men even went as far as to seat the girl on the pile of salt by which our jeep was parked. I did not have that in my mind but I settled for it.

Later, looking at the pictures of the girl, I felt a little ashamed for seating her on that pile of salt, which obviously is the livelihood of her family and working on it definitely shortens the lives of her relatives, family and someday maybe even her own. Their vision suffers a lot from the UV rays that are reflected off the surface of the salt pool. Their feet do not burn properly when they are cremated because of years of walking in the salty water!

On the way back I felt like walking instead of riding in the jeep. I tried to tell the driver that he can go home and I can walk. The resort was no more than about 1km away. The driver did not understand and he stopped every 200m to check if I want to get on. Maybe these people don’t understand the thrill of walking in the dark. They don’t realize that I am not walking in just any kind of darkness but in the Little Rann of Kutch desert, Gujarat, Western India. That is what tourists want to do here. Walk in the dark in the desert, on a beach in Goa in the moonlight, on top of a hill-station or down a dimly lit street somewhere in Mumbai, looking at the glow of the billboards high above.

I walked for a bit, looking at the wild asses rolling around in the sand, walking in pairs to the water hole. They have no enemies here. All 3800 of them can live happily here, in a sanctuary dedicated to preserve the last of their kind. The salt industry is seen as a threat to them. The state government issued licenses for salt industry in the area even after it was made a sanctuary. Seems that the battle between nature and men will never end.

In the evening I went to see a Catholic priest in the village next to the resort. The village was built by NGO’s after the big 2001 earthquake. The priest is in the village with three Sisters trying to improve the living conditions of the salt workers and also provide them with health services and educate their children. The Father told me that the agaria are an extremely exploited group and of a low caste. When they enter the house of a higher caste person they sit on the floor just to show their inferiority. They are given water from a mug reserved especially only for them. Their children usually drop out of school before 7. or 8. grade and have usually not learned to read before that. The Father hopes that out of 100 kids just five would prove out to be bright and motivated enough to be sent to the town in a boarding school. They would get a good education and employment and hopefully also return to the village and contribute to the well-being of others. This would also most likely help improve the status of the agaria. The Father told me that in Kerala, where he and the Sisters are from, high education has helped eradicate the caste system to a great extent. Literacy rate in Kerala is the best in the country, whereas in the village where Father is now working they could not find a single literate person when they first came there.

The next morning I woke up to the cheerful chatter of the agaria people, the happy voice of the owner of the resort, once an agaria himself, the delightful chirping of birds and the thought of a cup of chai, delivered to my mud hut together with a bucket of hot water for showering. Today, on the second day of the Holi festival, the road close to the resort was quiet as even the salt truck drivers were on holiday. The jeeps were being prepared for the full-day safari across the desert. A doctor from Dhrangadra and his three doctor friends with their kids were getting ready for their holiday out of the city. They had brought their kids here to relax after school’s exam period. The sun was not yet warm enough and I had to wear woolen socks on the stone porch of my hut to keep warm. The night had been chilly and the porch was still cold. At night I had woken up for 40 minutes at 4.12am to look at the full eclipse of the moon. In addition I saw a few satellites, two planes and one shooting star.

I was very curious to see how these people would interact with the salt workers we would be seeing soon. I was delighted to see that there was no problem. The salt workers we saw talked with the doctors but they were not photographed by them, whereas I took many pictures of them and their families and they were always happy, if a little shy, to pose.

We continued then to the highest point in the desert (55m above sea level). Out there, where you could no longer see the salt fields, people or cars anywhere, you really felt like being in the desert. As far as the eye could see there was just nothing but grey dry mud, cracked in the sun. The mirages in the horizon created an effect of floating cars, people, trees and bushes. If you have seen any of the Star Wars movies with the hover crafts you can imagine what I saw.

Maybe you are wondering why there is dry mud in this desert. That is because during the monsoon a great part of Little Rann becomes a shallow lake, overflown with river water. At that time fish and prawn comes from the sea to spawn here. That is why in many pictures you actually see some fishing boats. The same trips I did now with the jeep, would be done on a boat during and right after the monsoon. The salt workers abandon their temporary huts after the salt is collected and the fisher men move into their own huts built on the areas that are slightly higher so that the water does not reach them.

And why is there salt in the desert? The sea used to be here once but due to earthquakes the landscape has changed enormously. The salty water was left trapped under the ground and now pumps are used to get that salty water to surface. The water is kept in shallow pools for five months, between the monsoon and the summer, during which the salt in the water slowly crystallizes and can be collected.

We came back to the resort for lunch. Two Israeli tourists joined us so now we were four adults and six children in one jeep! We went to see flamingos on the east side of the sanctuary. I had never seen them before so it was cool, although we could only see them from a far, because we scared them and got them fly away from us the minute we arrived. We also saw pelicans.

All in all, the Little Rann was a great experience. I saw practically everything there is to see, and the resort was a wonderful place to stay. Also the discussion I had with the priest was really great, as I got to know more about the people who inhabit this place that to us seems completely inhabitable and do work that takes so much from them and gives so little.

Pictures can be found, as usual, in the gallery.