Reviews are always a wonderful surprise…
SUFFUSED WITH JOY
“ We are Suffused with Joy to share this Feedback.
Your Efforts have been more or less a Phantasmagoria of positive sound , skill and imagery.
Do maintain this Momentum.”
— Charlotte Metzler
“ Dear Satya,
I hope your trip back to Bhubaneswar was not too exhausting.
Denise and I would like to thank you for making our adventure through the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh and Odisha one of our most enjoyable trips ever.Your extensive knowledge and experience combined with your slowly uncovered, wry sense of humor were very, very special in helping us to understand and appreciate this very different world.And, Mr Babulee’s excellent driving made the long distances covered through the sometimes startling road traffic feel very comfortable.
I would strongly recommend that anyone else desiring to enjoy this exciting and rapidly disappearing experience take advantage of your excellent services.
Please feel free to use me as a reference.I will be happy to respond to any questions asked.
We are in the process of going through and sorting the over 5,000 amazing photos we shot during this 3 week, eye-opening discovery.If it’s not too much of an imposition I would like to ask for your assistance in properly identifying some of the tribal and caste people in the photos that I will send you.
And I thank you for sending me those early photos you’ve taken before the photography ban of the Bonda people.I will make sure to credit you on any of your photos used in my blog.
We are going to contact India Tourism and anyone else we feel may be able to assist to try and help inform people about this unspoiled region and attract understanding and appreciative people to enjoy its experience.
There are some very simple and inexpensive steps that could be undertaken to make the accommodations a bit more comfortable for the desirable level of visitors who would be attracted to this type of fascinating travel.
Again, thank you so much and please stay in touch.
Namaste
Richard and Denise ”
— Richard and Denise
“ Dear Mr. Simon:
Dorothy Gregor and I want to thank you for a truly memorable time in Bhubaneswar. It would be impossible to overstate how appreciative we are of Orissa and all we saw there.
You asked us for commentary, so here it is.
First, the New Marrion Hotel. It was just right for our needs, and we came to be very fond of it. The restaurant was great, good food and service. Beds in our room were a little on the hard side, but we slept very well indeed. Just to say that friends whom we hope to send to you might not bequite so happy with the beds as we were!
Narayan is an excellent driver and did everything he could to please us and take care of us. If he were to spend a little time polishing his English, some communication might flow more easily. He has a lovely sense of humor, and we enjoyed his company. Most importantly, he was very careful to look out for us two old ladies. He's a very conscientious young man. We liked him very much.
For other western groups who come, we think the shopping opportunities could be expanded. It would be good to have a visit to the textile museum at the front end of the trip so people know what the local product is. The people at the museum could pull some of those beautiful pieces out of the cabinets and talk about them, tell where they are from. Most people we know and travel with have been to too many weaving demonstrations. They would rather just see the textiles and maybe poke their heads into the room full of looms just to take a look. We liked the ikat weaving village very much. Maybe you could combine a couple of such places with different styles in an afternoon or morning?
Trimurti Arts and Crafts was an excellent stop, as they have a good collection of tribal artifacts that had age and history. We like that! All brand new is not so interesting to us, we're always looking for old stuff. But not everybody is like us. We also enjoyed the market near the Tribal
Museum -- great fun! And we didn't even get around the whole thing. We were sad that the guard at the little museum at Lalitgiri wouldn't let us take pictures. There was some sculpture in there we would love to have been able to take home to our colleagues for study by way of photos.
The Buddhist sites were fantastic for us. We had no idea such an evolved and spectacular Buddhist culture had thrived in Orissa in the medieval period. A real treat! Those places are jewels in our opinion, and we are told the least studied Buddhist sites in the world. We wish the government of Orissa would welcome foreign scholars to come and work on these sites -- both to do art historical research on them and perhaps to help with conservation. As you know, there is a huge interest in Buddhism and early Buddhist cultures in the west, US and Europe especially, but South America and Australia too.
The Hindu sites were equally compelling -- fascinating, splendid, and unique to Orissa, both the sculpture and the architecture. We were thrilled to see them.
And the Orissa State Museum -- oh, my goodness! We simply were blown away (western slang!) by what we saw there. It was the frosting on the cake! We were so excited by that amazing collection.
We are probably a little different from most of your groups because of our deep interest in Asian art, Hinduism and Buddhism. But -- you had that group of very focused textile lovers from Australia, so clearly you get groups who have serious interests and some background.
Bottom line for us, a total home run (more western slang!). Many many thanks, and we hope to stay in touch and see more of you in the future. We love Orissa!
Our very warmest regards,
Annie Dorsey & Dorothy Gregor
PS We're still interested in writing to the Minister of Tourism. If it's not too much trouble, please send name and contact information. And if you have suggestions about what we should say, let us know! Thanks, A&D ”
— Annie B. Dorsey
Carolyne Hirsch’s immersive experience with the women of the Gadabba ethnic community
“ Bhubaneswar: very funny guide, sly and cunning, what a fun with him...
Driver: driving very safely, absolutely good feeling in the car, polite, some better english would be maybe advantageous, because he wanted to explain a lot of details to our questions about Indian lifestyle, habits a.s.o. , but...
anyway he was a very nice person, cautious and we did appreciate the time with him a lot.
Driving to villages and local markets to watch different tribal people starting from Baliguada up to Chatikona, Onukudelli, Kundulli, Gupteswar:
Simply sensational, that’s why we came for visiting Orissa, very good tour !!!
Gopalpur, Taptapani, Chilika lake was very impressive, also the driving around beautiful landscape and villages as to take the boat ride on the lake.
Very funny guide at the boat, we had a big laugh with these guys and the birds were amazing.
Puri: cremation place - wow, different than Benares, but very intense to see from that close what’s happening in the last moments of our earthly life.
Visited three times that place, twice at night and at six in the morning, very touching and intense but natural impressions, good for westerners to think about ones own‘s finite life....great and amazing experience....
Sun temple, we watched from outside, same guide from 1st day Bhubaneswar, very funny, but experienced religion ceremony around the temple, we appreciated that a lot and it was better at 7 in the morning to get this impression than going around old stones, please don’t misunderstand, but this guide knew us from before and knew how to make us happy, great guy...really
Last day few time at the beach after visiting dance performance in Raghrajpur.
This dance and the whole city have been one of our highlights, because we were the only tourist at that time, this gives us a very special feeling, having lunch with the painter family, and the Gotipua dance was very very nice, a lot of fun with the young guys while preparing for the dance, close to look at....
the only thing was hotel hello in jeypore, best times are already gone, even as you told us the standard in Orissa is like this, but in the dining room it was kind of ugly on the tables, after 2 or 3 days as we always cleaned the fatty table staff turned up with special cleaner to erase that fat from the table....
Staff was really very nice and polite, maybe that was just our impression....
Anyway, doesn’t change our mind that this trip was great and amazing !!! ”
-Christian & Katrin Schmid
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