Merry Christmas and Highlights of November

24.12
Hello again from the ayurvedic center in Coimbatore. The treatment is going on very well and I am really happy to be here. I used part of the free time to update a bit by travel diary and my blog, so here I am with some highlights and pictures from last month.

I also take the chance to wish Merry Christmas to all of you!
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I spent all of november in the State of Tamil Nadu and here are some of the highlights:

- Volunteering in Chennai: I volunteered for one week in Chennai in the Don Bosco Institute of Communication and Arts. I held a presentation of my South America trip, gave a speech in front of 1000 (!) children during an short-film festival and I even took part in a short film shot with the aim of presenting the project and asking for donations.
- beach & temples: I spent 5 days chilling in Mamallapuram and Kanchipuram, bathing for the first time in the Bay of Bengala and visiting a lot of wonderful temples
- “yoga vacation” at Sivananda Ashram: 2 weeks of yoga in all its forms (asanas, satsang, prayers, chanting, lessons), along with proper diet (sattwik vegetarion food) and a great group of around 20 participants. Result: wonderful experience and inner peace as my new travel companion
- Kanyakumari, the “end of India”: I spent the last 2 days of November in Kanyakumari, the southern part of all the Indian subcontinent. I enjoyed wonderful sunrise in the spot where 3 seas meet, celebrating the beginning of a new day together with hundreds of pilgrims visiting a famous temple.

It was a very spectacular month I really enjoyed and below you can find some pictures.

Enjoy and all the best
Massi on the road

PS: Every month I send out some articles to my friends in Italy, Austria, Germany and around the world. If you are interested in directly receiving them once a month (in Italian or German), please send me an email: massimiliano_schiliro@hotmail.com

Children Film Festival in Chennai

Sea Shore Temple in Mamallapuram

I and Swami-Ji at Sivananda Ashram

Massi on the road in India, Highlights October 2013

13.12.2013

Hello from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. I have been in India for more than 3 months now and I only wrote one time in my blog...well, I guess it is good so, as the best way to explore and discover this crazy, wonderful country is by getting full-immerged in its vital and various cultural and spiritual life.
I am in an Ayurvedic Hospital at the moment and I started a 3-week treatment last Monday. As the word “hospital” immediately scares many people: I am fine, thank you! I am actually feeling extremely good, both physically and mentally. Yet, I decided to attend this treatment to cure some small disturbs derived from the many years where I was not leading a particularly healthy lifestyle. I will tell you more about this experience in the next weeks. 

Now, I would like to take the chance to write a few updates about what happened in the last months. September, as you can read in my last blog post, was mainly dedicated to volunteering in Mumbai.

In October I started my actual India trip, visiting different cities in Maharajastra state and then heading to Andra Pradesh. Here are some of the highlights:

- Vipassana meditation course: from 2nd to 13th of October I attended a 10-day Vipassana meditation course. Complete silence and 10 hours of meditation per day. It was very difficult and hard, yet one of the best experiences of my life. You can find more information about Vipassana here: . If you are interested in knowning how my personal experience was, just send me a message :-)

- Temples and more temples in Nasik and Aurangabad: after 10 days of meditation I really needed some movement and a few days of travelling. I visited the cities of Nasik and Aurangabad, famous for their hindu temples and palaces. I must admit I was very impressed by the archtectonic and artistical wonders I discovered. One of the highlight was the i”Bibi-qa-Maqbara” in Aurangabad, the “Taj Mahal of the poor” ;-)

- Visiting Don Bosco projects in Hyderabad and volunteering in Vijayawada: I spent the last 2 weeks of November in the state of Andra Pradesh. First, in its capital, Hyderabad, visiting Don BoSCO Projects for the Austrian NGO I used to work with in Vienna. Then, volunteering in different street children projects in Vijayawada. In both places I had wonderful, touching experiences, with the kids, with other volunteers (a fanstastic group from Germany and Austria!) and with the blocal partners.

October was indeed a wonderful month on the road, and below you can find some pictures.
Enjoy and all the best
Massi on the road

PS: Every month I send out some articles to my friends in Italy, Austria, Germany and around the world. Here you can find the October articles in Italian and German (I had no time to translate them into English). If you are interested in directly receiving them once a month, please send me an email: massimiliano_schiliro@hotmail.com

Vipassana Meditation

Aurangabad

Don Bosco Shelter in Andra Pradesh

Massi and Sustainable Couch in Mumbai, India

My highlights in India, SEPTEMBER 2013

“On 5th September I arrived in Mumbai, and started the 2nd part of my world trip. After my 15 month trip in South America, this time I will be travelling in India for nearly 6 months. The continent has changed, but my aims are the same: to discover new countries and cultures, meet the people who live there and spread the values of solidarity and sustainability.

Volunteering at Shelter
In order to get acclimatised to the new environment, I decided to spend the first month in Mumbai, the financial capital of India. I worked as a volunteer in a so-called “Shelter”, an institution that takes care of ex-street children, offering them a place to live, education, counseling and help. Around 65 children live in the Shelter and live together as a big family with competent and loving staff that takes care of them. So, after spending weeks and sometimes months living in the streets, they finally have a home again.
I spent a lot of time with the children, playing games, teaching English and helping them with their homework. This way I had the opportunity to learn about their lives and their dreams. I had a lot of fun doing sport and art activities with them, especially during a “hair-style body-painting” workshop.
My time at Shelter Don Bosco was wonderful and I am really grateful to the Fathers, the staff and of course to the children for the opportunity to spend such an amazing time together!

Discovering sustainability in Mumbai
Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, is a megacity with around 20 million inhabitants. Many of them live in slums, which are heavily populated informal settlements characterised by precarious housing and poverty. The environmental situation in the city is very bad: the intense traffic causes high levels of air pollution, green areas are cut down to build new houses and garbage recycling or collection is barely present. Even if the situation is rather bleak at the moment, many committed people are being pro-active in order to improve it. I had the pleasure to get to know an environmental NGO called GreenLine, which focuses on awareness programs within schools. I accompanied them on a day-trip to a National Park organised for 80 school-girls. We learnt a lot about the local flora and fauna and had a great time. In the next part of the newsletter you will find out more about Green Line and at the end a bonus video featuring their staff will present the story so far and the current projects, so keep on reading!

The trip goes on
After spending a wonderful month in the city, I left Mumbai to attend a 10-day Vipassana meditation course. Since then, much has happened and I would like to share it with you.
There are monthly updates in Italian and German - if you are interested in getting my articles, send me an email: massi@sustainablecouch.org or check out my blog in English.

Full report as OCTOBER NEWSLETTER OF SUSTAINABLE COUCH

peace begins with a smile

Shelter kids in Mumbai

Gate of India, Mumbai

Massi on the road, Pt. 2: INDIA I AM COMING!

The first part of my world trip ended on 20th December 2012, after spending 15 months travelling in South America.

Many things have happened since then. I had a wonderful time in Italy and Austria, reconnecting to my family and friends in a fantastic way. A part of me thought that maybe it is time to settle down again in Italy after 10 years working and travelling abroad. But after a long reflection it came clear to me that I want to continue my world trip. So I made up my mind and I am ready to be on the road again. This time I will travel "only" 5 months and a half, and in "just" one country, India.

But before leaving, I would like to summarize some of the highlights of my wonderful European Summer 2013:

- presentations "Massi on the road in South America": between March and August I held a total of 7 public presentations and 18  presentations in school classes, in Italy and Austria. This way, I could reach around 700 people with a basic and important invitation to act: identify your dreams and realise them! It was a lot of fun for me to present my Latin-American adventures and I am really satisfied because I could collect 2.275 € for education projects in Sri Lanka :-)

- book: during 6 weeks in July and August I wrote my first book :-) It is a collection of tales from South America and it will be hopefully published in Italian and the beginning of 2014. I really enjoyed the writing process and I would like to thank all the friends and relatives who encouraged me to write!

- friends & music: it was a spectacular summer full of music (festivals in Vienna and in Italy), of swimming (Wörthersee, Danube, sea, swimming pools), of walking (Tirol, Italian Alps) with old and new friends and I really enjoyed it!
I also spent a lot of time with my parents and I am so thankful to them for hosting and taking care of me and sharing wonderful moments with their "prodigal son" ;-)

It would take many more words to describe the amazing months spent in Europe so I created an album with my favourite pics:
Best-of Europe January-August 2013

And now it is really time to say goodbye to family and friends one more time.
I am ready for India!

Goodbye Italy, see you in February 2014!!

Massi on the road again :-)

"Massi on the road" at home: 5 months in Italy/Europe

20.12.2012 - 20.05.2013: Life at home
5 months ago my so long greatest trip came to an end. After 15 months in South America it was time to go back home.
Christmas with my family was simply wonderful and I enjoyed it more than ever.
But the warmth I felt at home was compensated by the extreme cold winter outside: a lot of snow, - 0° temperatures and many many days without sun.
Then the spring finally started, even if the first warmer days only arrived in April. Now I am writing these lines during a cloudy-sunny day, typical of this May so full of rain and only sometimes blessed with warm sun.
Many people ask me what I am doing all time at home, living with my parents and not working, so here are some highlight of the last months:
- January and February: I basically spent a lot of time re-reading my travel diaries, watching my pictures and videos from South America and reflecting on what the trip really meant for me and my life. I also made a few short trips in Torino, Milano and Rome to visit olf friends.
- March: I spent nearly 3 weeks in my beloved Austria. The time in Vienna was extremely intense, I met sooo many old friends and it was simply amazing to see them all again after 2 years! I also concluded the reflection on my trip and I help 4 presentations of "Massi on the road. 15 months in South America" in front of friends and public.
- April and May: back to Italy, I got in contact with many local friends who helped me organise 2 public presentations of my South-America trip. It was a big success, more than 120 people assisted to the presentations and donations were collected for an education project in Sri Lanka. As a result, 5 articles were published in 2 weeks in local newspapers. I so turned into a small celebrity, and I am happy not for my ego but because people understand better why I travel and why I decided to become a "vagabondo", as they defined me in an article ;-)

And now? It's my last week in Italy, preparing my next trip. I will leave next Monday, heading first to Switzerland to visit some relatives, then to Austria, where I will spend all of June, presenting my trip in different Austrian regions and visiting my friend in Vienna.

I am so grateful for the wonderful months spent at home, and at the same time I can't wait to be on the road again. "Massi on the road Pt. 2" will start in September, the destination will be announced soon...

Cold and snowy winter in Italy

Elegant for my first presentation in Italy

Article appeared on a local newspaper

Back in Italy and best-of Colombia

Here I am, back in Italy. Today I celebrate one month back home with my family
My Latin-America trip is over, after 15 months on the road.
I have started a reflexion phase about my trip, because I really need to think about all the things I have lived and learnt.

But before writing the "results" in the next post, I would like to dedicate this one to complete the series of "best-of". This one with Colombia and San Blas (Panama), the last places I have visited before flying home.

Also the last 40 days of my trip were simply fantastic, here a few highlights:

• I spent more than 2 weeks in Bogotá, meeting again an old friend and making a lot of new ones. I also discovered many sustainable initiatives and had the opportunity to present Sustainable Couch. More about this in the November Newsletter: Sustainable Couch in Colombia
• I enjoyed the wonderful Caribbean beached around Cartagena and Santa Marta. I will never forget a midnight swim with full moon in Playa Blanca. I spent 3 days in that wonderful beach, sleeping on a hammock a few meters from the sea
• I discovered the beauty of La Tajira region, together with a great travel companion
• I had the most amazing sailing experience during a 4-day cruise from Cartagena to San Blas. The commander was a Wiener so we enjoyed Austrain food on board (for me, of course, vegetarian)
• ...and many more memories I will always keep in my heart.

But back to the present now, in my home town, Gavi. It has snowed for the last 24 hours and there are more than 30 centimeters snow in the streets. Only a few cars are disturbing the white peace which covered the landscape.

I have been here for a month, the longest period I have spent in Italy since 2004. My home is warm and comfortable, I like staying with my parents. I have a few plans for 2013, but first I want to conclude my reflexion regarding the trip.

Even more important, I want to be "present" in the present.
This is what I really want to do.
I am happy.

Massi on the road (no more on the road, at least for a while)


Best-of Colombia & San Blas

Presentation of Sustainable Couch in Bogotá

Playa Blanca, near Cartagena

Parque Tayrona, Santa Marta