Mandvi (India) to Mundra (India)

Distance: 50Km
Departure: 27/06/09
Arrival: 27/06/09

15 people in one car and 1h30 was required to reach Mundra, another small town but quite crowded. Searching for a place to sleep we found “Meet Hotel”, guesthouse made in a typical Indian style with rooms scattered in three floors with a dirty aspect, a few light coming from the windows and fans on the roofs to refresh the guests from the stifling heat. The owner welcomed us very nicely and when we arrived at the point to ask about the fee he try to let us understand in Hindi “for you It’s free!” but we had to wait somebody able to translate before to get It.

After this amazing beginning, and apart for other one reason, our stay over there wasn’t great. The town is noisy and dirty, to walk in the streets is not really pleasant and there aren’t so many attractive places… actually, there aren’t at all! At the same time our stay there was more than motivate coz we could start to translate in action our project for the book.

We meet Shakil and his family, the welcoming was properly organized with tchaï and detailed explanation about their work. It was in this climate that we got closer and that we choose to propose to him the project. Soon everybody knew about what was going on in the small room where we were sitting and to confirm our thoughts shanty shanty most of the uncles came to pay a visit to us and he propose us to meet a member of the family to work with also.

Well, this first meeting was a good starting point for our research, we spent together 4 days and we use to meet once-twice a week. The contact with the family was great, so different and interesting their way to live and their artistic heritage was more than fascinating!