JOURNEYS THAT CONNECT

Rejuvenate mind body spirit and the earth

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Welcome to Connecting Cultures Blogspot

You will be taken on a Journey That Connects you with others

Connecting Cultures offers eco health and wellbeing tours and events to small groups of people to travel to and experience first hand places where traditional communities preserve their cultures and practice in art of ancient healing methods within their communities.

Our tours are run by the worlds best in Responsible Tourism and take you to amazing exotic locations and stay in authentic traditional acommodation that will nuture your spirit. We work with organisations that support fairer trade and conservation of natural environments.

Kerela South India Water Lily ponds in a local backwaters village

Imagine Dinner in a Mangrove Forest

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Imagine Dinner in a Mangrove Forest, you are served delightful local dishes made from fresh organic produce that are mouth watering and tantalising to your taste buds, in a forest that houses some of the world's most exotic butterflys, birds and flowers. Get to experience nature with a local indigenous nature guide, as you walk quietly along the mangrove forest walkways. Its a photographers feast and an experience

you will never forget....

All this and more!.... in Sri Lanka an award winning Eco Resort holiday village

All your health and fitness needs covered on our Eco Resort package

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I have always been fascinated how my view of the world can be when choosing different modes of transport to explore an area. Paddling along in a canoe on a river you get to observe things you may not have from the river bank, or riding a push bike down a village road brings you that much closer to local village life than driving past in a car. Our Eco Resort in Sri Lanka has all recreational activities covered with a wide range of choices to get out and be active and to see a bit of the countryside, by boat, walking riding a bike!

archelogical cultural sites sri lanka

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connecting cultures partners with eco tourism award winning sri lanka resort

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experience organic foods in a sustainble resort and farm

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Waynnard in South India, at an organic coffee plantation resort.

Its like living in the tree tops looking out from my eco lodge into the lush green forest below and beyond that surrounds the lodges located on the plantation.

Cheeky groups of monkeys swing from tree to tree and wait and watch in case guests forget to put away any belongings they have left out on the veranda to snatch them away .

The mist of a morning here creates a sense of peace and stillness in the forest and opens up to a new day as the sun filters through the trees. The open air restuarant on site serves up local fish and kerelan rice dishes for dinner and the kitchen staff are more than happy to keep your wine or beer cold in their fridge before you venture back to your lodge veranda...to just sit...relax...have a cold beer and contemplate the busy life back home of friends back in Australia!

Serenity in Motion

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Common Banded Peacock
Papilio crino

Crimson Rose
Pachliopta hector

There are masses of butterflys in the forests and gardens in Kerela South India to enjoy. Some of them like these one's (from the Swallo Tail Family of butterflies) are about 9 centrimetres wide and larger than I have ever seen in Australia.

I observed many speices from bright red, yellow to blues floating around in the gardens or hanging around the ponds at the resort. There is reported to be over 350 species of butterflies in India, and field naturalists from around the world come to India just to go looking for them!

Cultural footprints....one step at a time

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Visting Palakkad South India took me on a days journey a few hours out from the Ayurveda resort I was staying at and into the Hill stations where tea plantations are located. The hill stations are a refuge from the warmer parts of south india during summer and provide a lush green cool environment for visitors.

Located in the hills is a farm that is dedicated to growing organic bio dyanmic tea and agricultural products within a large plantation locatged on the farm. The operating group POABS who run the farm who as a fair trade company and from decent work conditions and fair wages practices. to the workers.Visitors get to visit organic food cooperatives.

We encourage visitors to buy local fair trade products
Connecting Cultures contributes a share of tour profits back into communities on tours

responsible tourism - walking the talk

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Eco Village Tours leadership by local women

Connecting Cultures has teamed up with The India Responsible Tourism Foundation (IRTF) which is based in South India to bring you authentic cultural eco based tours and holidays. Sustainable Tourism development programs headed by the foundation leader Rupesh Kumar won the Responsible Tourism of India Award for 2010, a prestigous award that celebrates the innovative community social and environmental programs that they have set up in South India through the work that its members have done. Work Skills of local people living in the villages in which the IRTF are based are nutured and developed to a level where jobs have been created in sustainable food cooperatives.

In one village where I had the privledge to visit a group of 17 women have taken over the lease of a disused rice field and after twelve months of hard work have a thriving productive agricultural cooperative set up. All the fruit and vegetables are grown organically using only natural pest control methods and avoiding the use of chemical spraying of crops. The food gardens that surround the village houses and in the disused rice field supply all the fruit and veggies for the womens families in the local village. The excess produce is sold to the locally run food cooperative that was set to in part supply food and produce to a group of 9 regional hotels that signed up through the project to buy locally produced produce to supply their kitchens that serve domestic and international guests that stay or eat at the hotels.

The women who work the farm have now set up their own group bank account and have set up a micro loan scheme for their members to access so that they can borrow at 1% interest rate up to 5000 rupees at a time. Micro Loan Schemes such as these allow women who may not have otherwise had the chance to get a loan from a mainstream bank access to small loans. Women can buy for instance a sewing machine they could not otherwise afford to get through this scheme and start their own home based clothing business.

I had the pleasure of being guided on a tour of the local farm and experiencing first hand the generousity of spirit of the women when I visited the village recently and was warmly welcomed into their homes. I was guided around and took a tour of the farm with a group of the women, who showed me how they grew the plants and how every part of a vegetable or fruit is used, in cooking and for medical healing purposes as in the ancient art of Ayurveda . Ayurveda seems to be readily practiced as a given thing within the communities I visited and is incorporated in every aspect of life. Often a whole plant is used, nothing is wasted, roots, stems, leaves, seeds and fruit are put to a whole range of uses, from medicinal teas and brews that cleanse and detoxify the body, to making wonderful tasty traditional indian curry dishes.

The smiles on the women's faces told me how much pleasures there was in growning your own food, sharing it amongst members of the community and cooking for guests. I reluctantly thanked the women and said my goodbyes and was excited at the prospect of creating an Eco Village Tours package and to bring overseas guests back into this village.

Through the IRTF members within the women's group have had the opportunity to be part of a local tour guides program and trained to lead groups. Local women leaders are now guiding international tourists down the backwaters of Kerela to experience by canoe the life in a village and take in the wonders of the local bird and flora.

You want to enjoy a holiday that has purpose, meaning and intent? read on, or contribute!...enjoy our blog!