Sea Virgins - Desis travel from Goa to Kanyakumari

This is the joy of desert dwellers meeting the ocean for the first time in their lives...

I joined this group of Ayurveda students from the Jhalamand Rajasthani University, on their annual education tour.

India is a huge country and they benefited from it. The tour took us from Jodhpur, in the state of Rajasthan down to the tip of the continent, Kanyakumari, in Tamil Nadu state.

How did I get on the band wagon?

I was a patient at the university hospital, practicing the 3 weeks Pancha Karma cleansing process. The patient rooms were in the student dorms building and I had a lot of free time on my side. Besides reading books I borrowed from their library, broadening my horizons on Indian traditional medicine, I also socialized with the students. (or should I say - they did with me, as Indian teens are quick to approach a foreigner).

So I heard they are getting ready for the tour and asked the principal, who was also my doctor, if I can join in. He didn't give me an answer and I thought it was a polite way to say 'no'.

A few days before the end of my 3 week treatment, he raised the subject. "Do you want to join us on the educational trip?" I didn't think twice !

It was December 2007 and once the year had came to an end we were in the state of Goa. A tiny state on the coast known for its beautiful sandy beaches.

So we had a night cruise on a party boat (very calm on western scale). The student girls were dancing, which is uncommon sight in rural India culture. The boys bathed in their underpants... as you can see.

Sleeping on train station platforms along the way and bathing in their public showers, we covered over around 6000 km in 15 days. On the way we visited botanical gardens, universities, museums, palaces, famous Hindu temples and churches of southern India, markets, restaurants and beaches.

In one word: Intensive-Care.