To take your luggage and run away, what a wonderful idea! And if we want to find quietness, India seems like our next stop… But, although the idea of taking the risk feels good enough, travelling to such an exotic country isn’t that easy, and even less so if you aren’t used to it. To prepare the vaccinations, visas, and to find the suitable dates for the desired holidays… As well as good weather! A very important topic in this part of the planet.

I met Carlos Catalán while studying journalism at the Autònoma de Barcelona University. He enrolled in a Korean language course to obtain free-choice credits  When his teacher offered a grant to travel to spend 2011's January learning the language at the Pukyong University, in the city of Busan, he accepted quickly even if that meant not taking most of the exams. When he returned to Spain to finish his tudies, he didn't wait long to travel back to Korea. He currently lives in Busan working as a Spanish teacher, the following are his impressions on the country that hosts him:

The Indian city of Allahabad has already finished the preparations to host the biggest pilgrimage in the entire world, the Kumbh Mela Festival or 55-day Maha. It is estimated that around 80 and 100 million pilgrims will arrive at the city. That would be the double of the entire population of Spain. The main reason is the creation of the universe according to the Hindu religion just at the convergence between the three sacred Indian rivers: The Ganges, the Sarasuati and the Yamuna, where Allahabad is located.

It forms more has a 30% of the Mongolian surface and together with the Himalaya mountain range it creates a nearly impregnable border with China. Gobi means desert in Mongolian and it is precisely the vastest in the whole Asian continent. Still today it is surprising for being a strange ecosystem for its animal diversity, its unusual combination of steppe with sand and gravel, the variety of dinosaur fossils it holds and the mysteries that surround it.

At the far south of Japan we find the Rykuku islands where happens to exist a rock formation that has been nearly three decades confusing archaeologists due to its enigmatic appearance. Right angles, flat walls, a star-shaped platform and even what seem two columns raise a question about if there ever was a human hand shaping the walls of the Yonaguni monument.

La fira de camells de Pushkar, al Rajasthan (Índia) congrega milers de persones cada any a la recerca de camells i bestiar, però sobretot per als seus participants és una oportunitat d'acostar-se la divinitat a través d'oracions, càntics i cerimònies. La trobada, anomenat Pushkar Mela en hindú, és un espectacle per a tots els sentits: entre la gentada apareixen equilibristes, faquirs, competicions de lluita lliure, danses tradicionals, tornejos de kabaddi, acròbates, còmics o encantadors de serps. Cada any, del 20 al 28 de novembre, masses vingudes dels llocs més recòndits del desert i del país se sumen a caravana per poder gaudir d'una experiència més propera a la mística que al comerç.

From Tibet flowing into Vietnam, going through the border between Laos with Thailand and Cambodia, 2.702 miles of water circulate timeless, being mute witnesses of old temples, wars and the birth of great civilizations. The Mekong River is the sixth longest river in the whole Asia and it is so plentiful that allows navigation and the cultivation of extensive rice paddy fields, that is why it's name means "mother of water" to Laotians and Cambodians, who have located their capitals at its shore.