Silver Map: Places, People, Impressions

The only wish I had there was to spend a week staring at the view outside of a cider house we were living in.
Little cabins, stone pieces of art that could be found every here and there were full of history about fishermen and kings and legends about trolls and mr. Northern wind. If I was curious to see a true Norwegian lifestyle and spirit, Balestrand was totally a right place to go to.
Beyond breathtaking scenery we've got an opportunity to see an ordinary day-to-day life of a Norwegian family, busy with taking care about their garden, picking up fruits and preparing for winter, visiting their own factory and running a family business of cider and juice production.
Balestrand is extremely small,so one must be really occupied  throughout a day not to feel an inevitable boredom of a little town.
Balestrand was referred to as a very inspiring place for the artists. And it's totally true. Fjords form a gigantic wall around the area, and watching rays of sun dancing on the top of the mountains while dark clouds above gather in a pattern is, indeed, an impressive scene that can deeply move and inspire artistic souls.
Hiking here is a must. if local Norwegians tell you it's going to be an easy hike (and you are not used to hiking almost at all), don't trust them. It's going to be harder. Far harder than "that's very easy". But it also is going to be worth it.
During our 5 hours hike we managed to enjoy wild blackberry, fall into the mud, fight the desire of quitting every step taken forward, get frustrated after every milestone we thought would be the end of our journey, but still having "just 30 minutes" to go...a couple of times. All of those little happenings were worth of what awaited us on the top.
Tiny us. Tired but happy. Enormous fjords, talking to us with their icy silence. Echo of the boat 900 meters down and our voices, relatively loud yet quiet.

Looking back at my Indian trip this summer I realise how much of unique experience it has been and how it changed the way I perceive my own country.

Lesson 1:  

It taught me to appreciate very basic things:  clear drinking water and healthy food.

Eating out in India is always a unique experience. Personally, I adore Indian cuisine with all its flavours and variety, however sometimes you have to pay a high price of stomach incompatibility with the local spices or water.

Lesson 2: 

It made me see how important such thing as safety is and how easy it is for a human to be vulnerable.

Being a female in India is a challenge sometimes and you can get into some unpleasant situations every now and then. On the other hand, I am truly amazed by Indians' skill to fight for their own place in the sun, overcoming any obstacles they encounter.

Lesson 3:

It showed me how the true contrast looks like.

I saw poor people, surrounded by sweat and dirt of everyday reality, trying their best to sell little hand-made accessories in order to provide for their families while just in a couple of meters away rich and gorgeous hotels provided high class standards of Paradise-on-Earth holiday experience.

Lesson 4: 

I understood what a true love to your motherland is.

Everyone I spoke to, no matter of their social status, love their land immensely and accept it with all its drawbacks.

Lesson 5:

Power of love and beauty.

Taj Mahal is probably one of the most impressive architectural masterpieces on Earth: it is perfect from the bottom to the top. I can't imagine how talented the artists should be to build something as sophisticated as Taj Mahal. The fact that it was built in the name of love makes it even more sensational.

Lesson 6:

Meaning behind animals being holy.

I simply love the concept of putting nature first. Unlike us, who treat animals as "little brothers" Indians put animals above a human being, emphasising that we should respect mother nature and we are as any other species just a part of this big world.

Lesson 7:

India taught me to open up my mind and always try to understand.


India was a totally new world for me. At some point of time, when you go on the streets and everybody stares at you, somebody calls on you, others want to either touch you or sell you something while all you hear is car honking and silently pray not to get knocked over, then you eat food playing Russian roulette with your stomach and always wonder if the water in your bottle is actually clean, it might get frustrating.

However, as soon as I decided to let myself just be taken over by Indian way of life, I got a step closer to understanding the logic behind many things and managed to enjoy living it in a different way.

Our driver used to to tell us: "Take some bread, go feed monkeys. They bring good karma"