Testimonial

As you know, Joji, I loved our TOT19 tour! As a weaver & occasional dyer, embroiderer, sewer – I loved watching the local people working on their crafts & showing us how meticulous, patient, creative & clever they are. Thank you for researching these crafts so well that we visited the source of the crafts as well as the retailers & museums. I also appreciated that you had found agents where the employment conditions for the local people seemed to be fair & caring. I found the people to be so beautiful – in each of the geographical areas – both men & women had beautiful faces – & smiling & pleasant to greet – I hope not falsely just for tourists! And of course, the colours were so wonderful everywhere. Thank you once again for guiding us so capably – keeping us safe & showing us such a wonderful range of crafts & textiles of your beautiful country. I hope I can manage to come on another of your tours in future – I’ll keep my eye on your website. I was especially thrilled to meet young man, who I discovered was the nephew of Vankar Visharam Valji – the indigo dyer near Bhuj – at the special textile exhibition we went to in the evening in Delhi on the recommendation of the 2 sisters from Mura – who was mainly there explaining his dyeing processes with natural dyes & had woven some beautiful shawls – one of which I purchased & now look at every day. I also loved the mud huts at the Rann of Kutch – I could have stayed there longer! As you know I found the long days of minibus travel too long – for people of our age quite difficult to sit for such a long time – problems with swollen ankles etc. – but I hear from Bronwyn that they did not have such issues – so I guess it was due to the road conditions after the floods that were a consequence for us. – but shorter distances, if possible. Also as you know I found the opulence of the 2 Taj hotels a bit confronting – (when also seeing the poverty & simple life of some of the local people) – for me I don’t need a hotel with more than 3 or 4 stars – as long as the room is clean & has reasonable toilet & shower facilities – the rooms in the other places were great- particularly the safari type huts.

Joy Dodds