Falls Ihr Euch für meine kleinen Erlebnisse in Indien interessieren würdet, so kann ich Euch die paar Briefe schicken, die ich auf Andys Page "Barefoot Travelling" (Yahoo Groups) habe erscheinen lassen. Leider ist diese Page plötzlich verschwunden (weiß jemand warum ?).

Hallo, Renè!
Natürlich würden uns deine Reiseberichte interessieren! Schreib sie doch hier ins Forum, wäre doch was für´s "Best off"
Viele Grüße, Christian

Hallo Christian,
Hier sind die drei Briefe - leider auf Englisch.
Eine Gruselgeschichte im zweiten Brief und eine schönes Märchen im dritten.
Das Liebesmärchen dauert immer noch und die Hochzeit soll bald stattfinden...

"Barefoot Travelling" Page (Yahoo Groups)

1. - July 20th, 2006

Hello from Rameshwaram.

For three weeks, I have been travelling barefoot in southern India. What a pleasure ! I left France to Bangalore and started my trip in Tirumala, north of Chennai. Temperature has always been high (already in France when I left) and nothing is more enjoyable than touching the warm ground with my soles. True, the first days here, after 11 a.m., it was a challenge walking on the burning road. Then I got used to it. In fact, there are so many people barefoot here, that walking barefoot is no exploit. It is the most natural thing in the world. Some (very few) might look at you because usually Europeans would not dare putting their lily white (clean ??!) feet into the germy Indian dirt... In Ladakh and Spiti, last year, not one Ladakhi would walk barefoot. I was asked several times why I did.

Beginning June, there was a discussion on the German "Hobby Barfuss" forum about the origin of shoes. The conclusion was that shoes are a social mark of class. The poorest among the poor are barefoot - hence, the French insult "va-nus-pieds". Here, this is obvious everywhere. As soon as an Indian has some money, he wears flip-flops, shoes... He feels someone.

So far so good, I am enjoying my barefooting every minute.
Till now I haven’t met another barefoot traveller. What a pity ! -

Let’s move to the west coast !
René

2. August 10 2006

Hi Andy,

I just opened your mail... in Leh !
Sorry for the delay but e-mail in India is sometimes rather fastidious, sometimes impossible. So, in the mean time everything happened - even the worst (of what a barefoot traveller could dream of)... But I am still barefoot, barefoot - barefoot, more than ever !

Well, my trip :
Bangalore - Tirumala - Vellore - Pondicherry - Chidambaram - Kumbakonam - Tanjavur - Tritchi - Madurai - Rameshwaram - Munnar - Cochin - Mysore - Swaranabelgola/Belur/Halebid - Hampi - Badami - Sholarpur - Hyderabad.

All that in 6 weeks, I am exhausted and should go back to Europe (to work...), so I decided to spend the last days in those mountains I love in order to rest. (I have already been 3 times in Ladakh).

How lucky you are, living in Bang'lore !
Barefoot in the heat is just (one of the) the most sensually agreeable experience you can make. Toes relax, spread out like a fan, grasp the earth, aaaah ! Exactly the contrary of what happens in our cold European winters... And shall I say it ? I was sometimes disappointed by the (absence of real) dirt of some southern Indian streets (!), I expected it to be so much more dirty (what I remember from pervious trips... in the obscure time when I still wore flip-flops, alas). I cannot help it, the dirtier the road, the more I enjoy it ! I think there is nothing more voluptuous than walking in dirt and mud.

Well, well, well...
In Badami, it was my feast. It was monsoon, the old town is an immense stable, cows everywhere, streets as I love them. I was enjoying myself - I had a great time barefooting there. Sure, for the first time on my tour, people stopped me to ask me why I was barefoot. No problem, I like joking with people.
But the worst were the kids, they were after me like nowhere before.
By the end of the day, I was on the ghats of the romantic tank when I decided to go home. I went up the steep main staircase - there were 4 steps left. 2 women appeared with kids on their arms, shouting "What's your name !". Shocked, I lifted my eyes and... put my left foot on the core of an exploded electric lamp ! Me being so proud of the leather of my sole - it entered it like a razorblade into butter... The two ladies shouted, one pointing her hand towards my naked feet. I took her hand and started reading her palm... To remove the glass splitter was easy, I took it by its iron end. It bled like hell. People from the house came out (they were the ones who had thrown the bulb !), they made me sit down, cleaned my foot (funny work, imagine the shit between my toes ! - I enjoyed every bit of it) put a dirty cloth round it - and home I went. I feared one thing... shoes, not infection. Home at the hotel, I bathed my foot, disinfected it - then for a couple of days I put Hansaplast on the injured spot.
Now everything is OK...
Tomorrow I’ll be on one of my favourite walks in Ladakh, among the paddies from TekTok gompa down to Chemre gompa and Karu junction. Barefoot as always.

To answer your question - of course, I walked down Danushkodi beach in Rameshwaram, far beyond the ghastly ruins of the village - at least three hours' walk, came back on the roof of a truck - wonderful.

Indeed, It would be great fun to meet - but it will be another time. By the end of August I am back in my Jura which I love... till November...
I HATE THE COLD, my feet HATE IT EVEN MORE... In December I will be for 2 weeks in Myanmar as last year and the year before - fabulous place where to walk barefoot. It would be great talking together on internet.

René

3. August 27 2006

Romeo und Julia auf Leh-Aviv

Hi Andy,
Again terribly late with my answer - sorry.
Computers work sometimes, computer time is not always a traveller’s time...

I am back home, in the freshness of my Jura countryside. My smiling feet already resumed their severe and stiff European ...froggy looks... The warm Indian happiness is gone.

Here is what I wrote you last Monday - the message never got through, neither did it in Delhi...

« It’s my last night in Leh, tomorrow Delhi, then Delhi-Heathrow by Tony’s Airways...
Checking in (with their new measures) will be something to enjoy...
But hahaha !
Who will be laughing at the check in ?
Liquid explosive in-between my toes !
Bum ! I will rub them right into their nose.
And believe me, those feet will be Old Delhi streets’ toes and soles.
Two day’s Fatepuri !

Checking...

Yes, they checked me in Hampi.
Twice !
At the entrance of Virupaksha temple and at Hampi’s most extraordinary spot, Hanuman temple, on top of the hill.
Shoes, please !
I showed my beautifully dusty, crusty feet.
Shoes, please !
No way, I had to open my camera-bag to prove my innocence.

To Hanuman temple I walked from the unfinished bridge which I had reached by bike. Strolling round Anegondi village I found lots of spots where to make my feet (and me) happy.
In front of Hanuman temple, when the monk was finally convinced that there were no shoes hidden anywhere, he suddenly discovered my feet. "Dirty !" he screamed and led me to a bucket of water. - In the small temple I gave some money to the Monkey, then I could admire the stunning panorama and take as many snaps as I wanted. Back to Anegondi, by dish over the river, I cycled to the underground temple where I cooled my feet in the water below (what a feeling there, in the dark sacred chamber, feet sliding in the cool water... - no tourist to follow me there) and came home to watch the sunset on the shore of the river.

Need I say it, still no encounter of the barefooter type, not one...

Well, busy I have been here in Leh, doing the craziest thing I did in all my life. Kuppler. Encouraging and helping a Ladakhi friend to rejoin his sweat heart... in Israel...
Well, a muslim Ladakhi travelling to Israel - the world upside down. I like that (no illusions) : experiences can only be good...
We will meet in Delhi, I’ll try to bring him into the maze between Jama Masjid and Fatepuri, at the bottom of Chandni Chowk. He in his mountain boots, me barefoot... Some interesting snaps to be made... »
....

Things worked out differently.
I had the opportunity to see how hard it is for an Indian to fight Indian administration. I spent some agonizing hours with him at the Indian Emigration Office. What Indians can make to annoy and humiliate other Indians boggles the mind. For me the situation was sort of funny. Eternal India ; pre-computer situation : a big traditional hall, endless paper files up to the ceiling, empty teacups on scattered papers - whirling fans on the ceiling, roaring papers on the tables ; condescending Indian "fonctionnaires”, civil "servants”, leaning back in their armchairs while the big crowd was desperately pressing against the grille. All those demanders were nicely dressed - they all had smart shoes. There, in the emigration office for Indian citizens, there was one foreigner (what was he doing there, anyway ?)... and he was barefoot !

In the late Wednesday afternoon, making some last shopping along Bazaar road, Pahar Ganj, I saw someone walking barefoot. I waved. Was he a barefooter or was he sparing his shoes from the muddy road (it had just been raining) ?

I had intended to walk again on the big slabs in front of Jama Masjid, and to try those slabs on the ground of the Mosq’s inner court : Between noon and 2 p.m., you could fry eggs on them or cook tchai. Last year I had a try - I jumped like a cat on a hot tin roof. This year, no time, unfortunately.

Lamayuru Moonland in Ladakh. It belongs to one of my first experiences as a conscious barefooter... ...only three years ago, it was about time...

The superb and impressive photos you sent me of your soles give evidence that I still have some progress to make... Thank you - I preciously put them into my file.

Occasionally walking barefoot is totally different from being a barefooter. I remember ordeal on the Sulawesi Highway to Pendolo in a time (17th century) when the whole "road" was a gigantic kuala lumpur, a pit of mud... all vehicles stranded. We had to walk, there was no choice, and we had to walk barefoot... hell ! I remember my destroyed feet, how they found relief in the waters of Poso lake. - Some of my most glorious prehistoric, unconscious, feet feats were two barefoot walks, each one month long, round Nias island (off Sumatra), hunting for hidden idols in the bushes. Peddling in the stony mud, I shouted, swore, hated the little school girls and boys who were so nicely gliding over the mud, their bare feet staying eternally clean... I remember envying their little toes that gripped into the earth, clung to the roots : toes like fingers ! Yet, alas... By the time my feet felt better, I put slippers on, as usual...
(Quand on est con, on est con...)

I have a couple of images of my feet last year in Nubra valley, in Spiti (till now the hardest I did barefoot), some this year. I am still new to digitalised photos, so be patient, plz.

René