Standing at the back of the stage, two musicians play driving rhythms, one on a bronze gong, the other on heavy bell-metal cymbals; they also sing the dialogue. Actors appear and disappear from behind a hand-held curtain and never utter a sound, save the odd strange cry. Learning the elaborate hand gestures, facial expressions and choreographed movements, as articulate and precise as any sign language, requires rigorous training which can begin at the age of eight and last ten years. At least two more drummers stand left of the stage; one plays the upright chenda with slender curved sticks, the other plays the maddalam , a horizontal barrel-shaped hand drum. When a female character is “speaking”, the chenda is replaced by the hourglass-shaped ettaka , a “talking drum” on which melodies can be played. The drummers keep their eyes on the actors, whose every gesture is reinforced by their sound, from the gentlest embrace to the gory disemboweling of an enemy.

Although it bears the unmistakeable influences of Kutiyattam and indigenous folk rituals, Kathakali, literally “story-play”, is thought to have crystallized into a distinct theatre form during the seventeenth century.

The plays are based on three major sources: the Hindu epics the Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Bhagavata Purana .

While the stories are ostensibly about god-heroes such as Rama and Krishna, the most popular characters are those that give the most scope to the actors – the villainous, fanged, red-and-black-faced, katti (“knife”) anti-heroes; these types, such as the kings Ravana and Duryodhana, are dominated by lust, greed, envy and violence. David Bolland’s Guide to Kathakali , widely available in Kerala, gives invaluable scene-by-scene summaries of the most popular plays and explains in simple language a lot more besides.

When attending a performance, arrive early to get your bearings before it gets dark, even though the first play will not begin much before 10pm. (Quiet) members of the audience are welcome to visit the dressing room before and during the performance. The colour and design of the mask-like make-up, which specialist artists take several hours to apply, reveal the character’s personality. The word pacha means both “green” and “pure”; a green-faced pacha character is thus a noble human or god. Red signifies rajas , passion and aggression, black denotes tamas , darkness and negativity, while white is sattvik , light and intellect.

Once the make-up is completed, elaborate wide skirts are tied to the waist, and ornaments of silver and gold are added. Silver talons are fitted to the left hand. The transformation is complete with a final prayer and the donning of waist-length wig and crown. Visitors new to Kathakali will almost undoubtedly get bored during such long programmes, parts of which are very slow indeed. If you’re at a village performance, you may not always find accommodation, so you can’t leave during the night. Be prepared to sit on the ground for hours, and bring some warm clothes. Half the fun is staying up all night to witness, just as the dawn light appears, the gruesome disemboweling of a villain or a demon Asura.

The mainland is actually composed of Great Abaco and Little Abaco, two distinct islands separated by a tiny gap. In the far north, a group of smaller cays begins with Walker’s Cay and runs southeast to Cherokee Sound – a lengthy chain well worth visiting for its superb diving, snorkeling and fishing. Most visitors, however, prefer to concentrate on the areas near Great Abaco’s main town, Marsh Harbour, and the old-English charm of nearby Elbow Cay, Green Turtle Cay and Treasure Cay, which provide not only glimpses of early Loyalist settlements, but also enchanting coastlines, radiant bays and inlets, and terrific aquatic sports. The pine-covered Abacos have a temperate-to-subtropical climate, with cool winters and mild, windy summers, and an average yearly rainfall of 50-60 inches.

Sailors may find ideal yachting in the shallows of the western coast, a fascinating landscape of mangrove islands, rocks, and cays known collectively as The Marls . On the east side, fringing reefs and several deep canyons offer excellent diving, with most choice locations just north of Marsh Harbour.

Speedy and inexpensive buses and minibuses run to certain parts of the island, particularly between St John’s and English Harbour on the south coast and along the west coast between St John’s and Old Road, although none goes to the big tourist area of Dickenson Bay and Runaway Bay.

By car
If you want to tour around, you’re invariably better off renting a car for a couple of days, though rental prices are fairly high.t

By taxi
If you just want to make the odd excursion or short trip, it can be cheaper to hire taxis, identifiable by the H on their number plates and easy to find in St John’s, Nelson’s Dockyard or at the airport. Elsewhere you’ll often need to call or ask your ho phone to arrange for one. Try West Bus Station Taxis or Antigua Reliable. Fares are regulated but there are no meters, so be sure to agree on a price before you get into the car.

By bike and motorcycle
Since Antigua is so small, and there are few steep inclines, it is ideal cycling territory, and bikes can be rented for a day or a week. Hiring a scooter or motorcycle is just as much fun and can be a fantastic way of touring around, though you’ll need to watch out for madcap drivers on the main roads.

Almost all visitors to Paradise Island arrive through Nassau International Airport, though in 1989 the Paradise Island Airport was opened: a small-jet port serving commuter airlines, which will soon be expanding to accommodate larger planes.

Almost all visitors to Paradise Island arrive through Nassau International Airport, though in 1989 the Paradise Island Airport was opened: a small-jet port serving commuter airlines, which will soon be expanding to accommodate larger planes as well.

Only four miles long and half a mile wide, Paradise Island tapers to a point on its western end where there is a small lighthouse . The best beaches are on the north side facing the Atlantic Ocean, while the south side mainly features marinas, docks and wharves. From the Paradise Island Bridge, drivers encounter a huge roundabout, the northern axis of which leads to the Atlantis hotel and its casino. North of the hotel is Cabbage Beach, two miles of fabulous pink sand, and further east, separated by a small anvil-shaped headland, is Snorkeler’s Coe Beach, a striking and often deserted stretch where one can snorkel in peace.

Two main east-west roads cross the island: the first, Paradise Island drive, heads east from the roundabout, passing the Ocean Club and other resorts and restaurants, and leads to the island’s eastern end, home to private residences, a few exclusive hotels, the airport and a golf course.

The only sights in the vicinity are Versailles Gardens and The Cloister, built to resemble medieval ruins by the developers of the Ocean Club . The other street, Paradise Beach drive, running west from the roundabout, heads out to Club Med and provides access to Pirate’s Coe Beach, a secluded, windswept stretch, and Paradise Beach, two miles of sand that lie up to the name.

Since many people simply walk to their destinations, getting around Paradise Island is quite easy. The Casino Express, a shuttle bus making the rounds of the major hotels for a US$1 fare, is based at the Atlantis hotel. For longer trips or when it is hot, taxis circulate on the main roads and carry passengers across the Paradise Island Bridge for shopping in Nassau. Water taxis, ferries and boats leave from Hurricane Hole to shuttle tourists into Nassau.

Scilly Cay
Take the ferry out to this tiny island and snack on tasty fresh lobster, grilled for you right by the beach.

There is no public transportation system, so you’ll need to rent a car if you want to explore the island.

Options include:

Most of the rental companies are based in The Valley, but will normally either deliver to your hotel or pick you up and bring you to their offices.

Temporary licenses are supplied by the car rental company. vehicles drive on the left.

Taxis are available.

There are no US, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand embassies or commissions in Anguilla.

Half a kilometer past Chevers and 300m off the Western Highway is the Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, a 44-square-kilometer protected area extending to the Sibun river, which offers birding and nature trails through five distinct types of vegetation and habitat. Adjoining the sanctuary is the Monkey Bay National Park, enclosing a biological corridor which runs South through karst limestone hills to connect with the Manateve Forest Reserve.

Facilities include a field research station for student groups, with an excellent library and small museum. Apart from being a relaxing place to stay, either in a bunkhouse or camping on raised platforms under thatched shelters, Monkey Bay is a viable experiment in sustainable living, using solar power, rainwater catchments and biogas fuel for cooking; the food (some of it grown in the station’s organic gardens) is plentiful and delicious.

Canoeing on The Sibun River, walking the Indian Creek Trail are some of the most interesting things to do at the Sanctuary.

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Travelers weary of daunting metropolises will find that Kerala’s cities are small-scale and more relaxed than elsewhere. For visitors, the most popular is undoubtedly the great port of Kochi (Cochin), where Kerala’s extensive history of peaceable foreign contact is evocatively evident in the atmospheric old quarters of Mattancherry and Fort Cochin, hubs of a still-thriving tea and spice trade. The capital, Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), almost as far south as you can go and a gateway to the nearby palm-fringed beaches of Kovalam, provides visitors with varied opportunities to sample Kerala’s rich cultural and artistic life.

However, more so than anywhere in India, the greatest joy of exploring Kerala is the actual traveling – above all, by boat, in the spellbinding Kuttanad region, near historic Kollam (Quilon) and Alappuzha (Alleppey). Vessels, from cruisers to wooden longboats, ply the backwaters in day-long voyages, well worth taking for the chance of a close-up view of village life in India’s most densely populated state. Furthermore, it’s always easy to escape the heat of the lowlands by taking off to the hills.

Roads through a landscape dotted with churches and temples pass spice, tea, coffee and rubber plantations, and natural forest, en route to wildlife reserves such as Peppara or Periyar, roamed by herds of mud-caked elephants.

Kerala is short on the historic monuments prevalent elsewhere in India, mainly because wood is the building material of choice. Moreover, what ancient temples there are remain in use, and more often than not are closed to non-Hindus. Nonetheless, distinctive buildings throughout the state eschew grandiosity in favor of elegant understatement. Following an unwritten law, few buildings, whether houses or temples, are higher than the surrounding trees; from high ground in urban areas this can create the miraculous illusion that you’re surrounded by forest. Typical features of both domestic and temple architecture include long, sloping tiled and gabled roofs that minimize the excesses of both rain and sunshine, and pillared verandas; the definitive example is Padmanabhapuram Palace , just south of the border in neighboring Tamil Nadu and easily reached from Thiruvananthapuram.

Phenomenal amounts of money are lavished upon many, varied, and often all-night entertainments associated with Kerala’s temples. Fireworks rend the air, while processions of gold-bedecked elephants are accompanied by some of the loudest (and deftest) drum orchestras in the world. The famous Puram festival in Thrissur is the most astonishing, but smaller events take place throughout the state – often outdoors, with all welcome to attend.

Theatre and dance styles abound in Kerala; not only the region’s own female classical dance form, Mohiniattam (“dance of the enchantress”), but also the martial-art-influenced Kathakali dance drama, which has for four centuries brought gods and demons from the Mahabharata and Ramayana to Keralan villages.

Its 2000-year-old predecessor, the Sanskrit drama Kutiyattam , is still performed by a handful of artists, while localized rituals known as Teyyattam, in which dancers wearing nine-meter-tall masks become “possessed” by temple deities, continue to be a potent ingredient of village life in the north. Few visitors ever witness these extraordinary all-night performances first hand, but between December and March, you could profitably spend weeks hopping between village festivals in northern Kerala, experiencing a way of life that has altered little in centuries.

A house swap holiday may also include a car exchange. Some estimates indicate that 15-20% of travelers are participating in some form of house swapping. Summer is traditionally the peak season for house swapping, due to families traveling during summer vacations and house swapping allows families to try out a location for a short period of time while saving money over the traditional vacation costs and allowing them to take vacations that they may otherwise be unable to afford.

Home exchanging has numerous advantages, including significant savings on hotel and car rental costs. And who doesn’t prefer a spacious house to a one room hotel? It’s estimated that families can save thousands by swapping their homes instead of booking hotels and rental cars, although the perception and listing of the home may not always match reality, and some may be uncomfortable with others using their home. Not all travelers are interested in house swapping solely to save money, but they also see it as a means of meeting locals, seeing relatively non touristed regions and experiencing local culture. The Internet has made the process of finding a swap significantly easier with a number of websites devoted to house swapping.

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]]> http://ustravelads.com/1441/feed 1 http://ustravelads.com/1438 http://ustravelads.com/1438#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:11:44 +0000 Zirtaeb http://ustravelads.com/?p=1438 Occupying the coast west of Santo Domingo and taking its name from the major city at its center, the Barahona Region was once the focus of Trujillo’s personal sugar empire.

Vast tracts of cane still take up much of the land north of Barahona city, but today this is one of the country’s poorest regions.

As a result, the stunning Barahona coastline is almost completely undeveloped, making it perfect for independent travelers willing to rough it a bit in exchange for unblemished natural beauty.

Barahona city isn’t an especially pleasant place. Founded in 1802 and once the informal capital of Trujillo’s multimillion-dollar sugar industry, the city has fallen on hard times due to the closing of the local sugar mill.

That said, the locals are friendly and it does have a couple of good hotels, making it a useful base to explore the undeveloped coastline that stretches west of the city. If sticking around, head either to the Malecón, which is quite beautiful, or the parquet (park) central, a major hangout at night.

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Most visitors arrive via guagua or car ; coastal Highway 44 connects the city with Azua, Baní and Santo Domingo to the east before continuing west all the way to the border. If spending the night, most accommodations are within a couple of blocks of the seaside Malecón.

 

]]> http://ustravelads.com/1438/feed 0 http://ustravelads.com/1435 http://ustravelads.com/1435#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:06:12 +0000 Zirtaeb http://ustravelads.com/?p=1435 Tourists pour into Barbados from all over the world, drawn by the delightful climate, the big blue sea and brilliant white sandy beaches. Many of them rarely stray far from their hotels and guesthouses, but those who make an effort find a proud island scattered with an impressive range of historic sites and, away from the mostly gently rolling landscape, dramatic scenery in hidden caves, cliffs and gullies.

For more than three centuries Barbados was a British colony and retains something of a British feel: the place names, the cricket, horse-racing and polo, Anglican parish churches, and even a hilly district known as Scotland. But the Britishness is often exaggerated, for this is a distinctly West Indian country, covered by a patchwork of sugarcane fields and dotted with rum shops, where calypso is the music of choice and flying fish the favored food.

The people of Barbados, known as Bajans, take great pride in their tiny island of 430 square kilometers and 250,000 people, which has produced writers like George Lamming, calypsonians like the

Mighty Gabby and cricket players including the great Sir Gary Sobers, who have for decades had an influence way out of proportion to the size of their home country.

Tourism plays a major part in the country’s economy and revenues have been put to good use. The infrastructure and public transport are first-rate and there is no sign of the poverty that continues to bedevil some Caribbean islands. Development has mostly been pretty discreet, many of the facilities are Bajan-owned, there are no private beaches and no sign of American fast-food franchises.

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