Mumbai is not like the rest of India. It is a one in a million kind of place, and definitely worth going to experience it. It is not to hide that the city is very challenging and can be intense. Imagine having 16 million inhabitants and rising, all living and working on a not so spacious peninsula. This then increases the levelof intensity, bringing more and more people together in many different ways and also adding to the city's brilliance.

The Hindu population great commitment (wearing traditional clothing, practising customs such as vegetarianism (in fast food restaurants you get a veggie and chicken burger only, no beef as this is a sacred animal) :)
Many things were really new to us and we had to ask a lot of questions
and not just the basic language things.

Real estate prices in Mumbai are reaching numbers of the ones in NY or London, the economy is growing very fast, Mumbai is 'the place to be for the investment, being the financial capital of India. The paradox is that right now we didn’t see that development or people who create it .
The place which appeared to be like a spot out of different world, accumulating many creative minds was 'Zenzi' bar. We as Smirnoff Ten were honoured to hold an exhibition of our best travel – night life photography. DJane NAME was apparently the best feminine house music dj from the indian scene. The guests were some celebrities like famous photomodel Carol, some TV faces, photographers, artists, foreign and local musicians. And the feedback was very positive. The main attraction of the afternoon was that a kind of auction. Everybody who liked any photograph, wrote his/hers on a paper next to it and at the end of the event, we chose one name to get a picture.

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On another occasion to experience some more of India, we were invited to glimpse into the Bollywood Studios. They are located in the suburbs of Bombay between woody hills. Driving down empty, quite narrow asphalt roads you can see in a distance different wooden 'fortresses'. From outside you just see huge construction, which may consist a whole 'fake' town inside. These are the film sets. They are kept in secret one from another, as there are many productions being filmed simultanously. And each of them is worth millions of dollars.
That is why we were not allowed to take photographs on the set, with cute fake, but 'real' perspective painted city panorama.

A sign on the entrance gate to one of the sets.

The stongest moment was to meet the big stars - ... They do emanate a noble kind of energy. We felt honoured to meet idols of so many people. It was a special moment.

Mysteriously hot summerdayz in Melbourne

Just lying in a city park on the hill in the grass, letting my feet be touched by the sun. Enjoying summer. It's a sudden jump into a long expected summer happy atmosphere of this kind I know from home.With a smell of trees, of green, empty hot streets of a city waiting until sunset to get fulfilled. People find their favourite tree and grass space to lie on with a book or notebook. They just stop the rush and enjoy a meditative break in the city.
But today is different than any other day. We have the first day of a new year, and we reunite with the other half of the Smirnoff Ten – from the Sydney versus Melbourne New Years Eve Challenge.... at Melbourne 'Summerdayz' festival.
In a huge city park in 42 degree heat with thousands of people and many smaller and bigger stages, we The Smirnoff Ten had our amazing Smirnoff Ice igloo. Of course not made out of ice, just a designed igloo, with sophisticated bar and best barman, dancing space for about 100 people and a small DJ booth over the bar. The DJ booth which appeared to be the source of great surprises... One of the greatest was Sister Bliss mixing a live act. It felt absolutely special to be there as we were a very small audience... We danced for many hours, enjoying the company of so many wonderful people...

Australian Adventure

One of the most joyful experiences from Australia I certainly has was our (mine and Luiza's) spontaneous trip to the beach.... somewhere in the south of Victorian state. As Luiza is a lovely beach addict and always craves for a beach, she made a research on this subject and found a few places. Until the last moment of jumping into train, we were undecided, but we chose apparently the one known as the most beautiful in the area, which was 3 hours away from Melbourne! (Great Ocean Road)....
The train and then bus were both overcrowded with young people, so we wondered, what was the cause? As we later discovered, by talking to a nice guy picnicing alone on the grass close to the bus stop, everybody was heading to Falls New Year's Festival. He was the one, who inspired us to act as we did.
It wasn't his first time there, so he was able to give us sufficient information.
It was the biggest music festival in the whole Australia, foreseen for 15000 people, just in the middle of the Australian bush.



Yes we were excited and ready for an adventure!



On our way there, tt was so funny, because we kept on meeting and losing different people in the bush, who were heading to the same place..we have been secretly helping each other by listening together to the sounds of the bush and then estimating the direction and showing it with a hand... only sometimes everybody had different opinion... time was passing by, we lost 'the way' few times, getting more and more scratched by all kinds of grasses and branches,...'cool' to wear a beach skirt.... hmm....nature..., crossing small rivers, walking under gigantic 'jurassic' polypodies, or just meeting wild wallabies...
In the moment we had had enough, we met a group of 7 or 10 guys, smiles came back....they helped us, but we lost them again....anyway it didn't take much longer to get there...I only say normally it takes about 1.5 hours to make this trip – we needed 3.5 hours.....

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One amazing thing happened after another...once you start off....We got out of the bush with no real plan – we didn't have a tent, or sleeping bag, or warm clothes, what we realized at the sunset, as it got chilly.....let's just walk, walking is good :-) and then by crossing one of the huge parking areas, accidentally we met the group of the guys we had met in the bush and ...well they adopted us....They had their own camp with a huge group of their friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, living partly in vans, or tents – all from a small city two hours south of Sydney. Our new family... next to our new house which was a VW van...

***

The festival was just GREAT!!! During the day it had a relaxed atmosphere, and the evenings were little bit wilder with more shiny stars (than these millions on the sky).


The best thing about this place in the middle of bush were the people.
Everybody was so normal, so relaxed and friendly. You could start a conversation just like that with anybody, or just join any group of people and party with them together. Some of them were organizing collectives, like for example, Jack, who was inviting random passers-by to chillout under his blankets in the middle of a side road... And some people were recognizing us already as 'the two foreign girls from the bush' and were inviting us to their group of friends... amazing isn't it? The festival had this pleasant little bit of a hippie touch not only because of the atmosphere, but because of really good food as well. There were many stands all with super healthy and organic, great tasting food, but my favourite was the fresh pressed juice bar with a nice chill out lounge. The only difference was that the mixers were powered by a man on a bicycle:-)



So you sure want to ask me if it was worth all of the scratches to get there?
YEEEESSSS!!!! Only we could not stay until the end of festival as we were supposed to spend NYE in Melbourne at a Felix da House Cat party....
Work is work.... :-) Keep on rocking !!!

DIFFERENT BEAUTY

It happened just by accident, that I had a chance to discover/to meet/to taste the real underground scene of Sydney. People who you never see in the city, about whose existence only few know.
As we were organising our Smirnoff Ten Christmas Party in one gallery space, the owner asked me how I found this place, as there were only a few such places in Sydney and rather unknown and uncommon.
Things just happen. Just on my second day in Sydney, I enjoyed an afternoon in one nearby arty cafe with a young intellectual crowd. There, on the way to toilet I just grabbed an interesting looking exhibition flyer. It happened to be 'THE' place with freedom to get creatively wild. I contacted him and everything worked out as you can see in our Australian video, but at the end of our party Pete, the owner asked me if I would like to continue with him and his friends – the night was still kind of young so why not?



It was well organized as well. Outside on a parking space was a chill out, chatting and smoking area. Then there was a huge hall filled with art objects and another room with atelier leftovers to give away. Then we entered another hall – a music hall with stage, dancefloor in front and a DJ booth. Next was a bar and another hall accomodated for DJs. The line up was planned carefully, as performers changed in a time circle and music was really involving – from drum 'n bass, to punk, metal, even live a group of about 15 drummers., and electro.
So we were circulating between the halls. It was great and long lasting :-)

The only sad thing was that I met these art environment on my last Sydney night, but I hope you guys take care and meet you soon – Underworld is not dead!


We drove for a long while... but it was worth as we met a different world. Something that we had never seen before – real anti-fancy Sydney underground.
The venue was an old ice cream factory taken over by a group of artists, whose studios were there for 15 years and that night was the last official night of
existence of that place. It was huge and full of creative looking people.
Conscious personalities, self designed characters in very often self designed clothes. I haven't seen such a variety of characters in the two weeks I’d been in Sydney as there was in that one night. It was beautiful. Art was present everywhere. I felt really happy to be able to see and experience this phenomena.

Australia...

It almost felt like London, but brighter with very strong Asian influence. It just feels so good to have an excellent sushi bar on every corner and people speaking English.
We (me, Audette, Akona and Kung) came with almost a week after the others. so the rest of the team was fully integrated with local life and. We concentrated on Kings Cross, 24-hour party district. We found amazing cocktail bars, fancy clubs, interesting bars, even one small hyper bar, where at the entrance you’re asked to compose a costume for yourself from the clothing pieces available. As you see on the picture Kareem tuned into 80-ies wearing pink leather jacket. Some of our impressions of Kings Cross are here featured like 24h open snack bars or the butterfly from Soho club, known as favourite of Kylie Minogue from her early days. Or me tasting one of the best cocktails ever – hibiscus daquiri... In other words Sydney's club/bar scene is of big variety and everyone will always find something interesting...

*PARADISE ISLAND

How would you describe paradise? What is paradise?
Is it about the place or about the feeling? State of mind? Or maybe both?
I was very lucky to experience paradise in Morro de Sao Paulo in Bahia, Brazil.
Was it the warm breath of the ocean relaxing my feet or the warm sand?
Or maybe hypnotizing view of neverending waves smashing against the rocks?
Palms, coconuts, green, blue, yellow, blue....
Friendly sea, yellow striped fishes, just floating for hours in the salty blue, blue, blue soup
Brazilian flags as beach towels all over the beach....joyful beautiful people..
Amazing sunsets, amazing sunrises watched from a hammock,
millions of stars in the blackness of the sky
being right in every action, just being
nothing to add nothing to take away
close to nature measuring and feeling so correctly your own human powers
walking, climbing, swimming, running, laughing, cheering, laughing ..
you and you
wind in your hair, wind on your face, salt on your lips,
how beautiful
time stops
you and your mind
every moment
here and now...

open blue sky
szeleszczaca parasolka ponad glowa
blue blue blue
zielony kokos kolo
mojego blue bikini
ponad oceanem
ogarniety niebieskoscia

To all the people who kissed me on the street....

Next day we got a chance to understand the phenomena of Carnaval even better, as we were about to take part in the 'Bloco do Nana.' Whatever it meant it was famous for its wild block of street parade. Why famous? Somebody said it was the most fashionable for its frivolous ways! Mainly everybody was kissing everybody...

We found ourselves in the middle of a jumping crowd with no escape... the only way is to jump with them, and try to escape from unwanted kisses... or enjoying the ok ones...we even saw a guy with a counter!!!



crazy, crazy, crazy....


It took us several hours of jumping to the rythms of samba, and singing with the crowd...

The end of the parade for us was in the lounge camarote 'Do Nana'.
It was huge – from a street side it was like a club, but it continued through different lounges and even a small live band's stage right through to a beach....

The music of the live band was all over the beach, so everybody could keep on dancing on the sand or in the water... freestyle whatever you want, but keep on moving, keep on going... our South African friend Suzanne even gave us a bellydancing show... The band kept on playing – it seemed like the set list was repeating, but the public was still dancing.. In front of the stage, it was very popular to make spontanous group choreography, like from a kind of musical - so much fun!!!! So refreshing! Even when you felt like you could not dance anymore you kept on going...

What are you doing during a lunch in hotel when you've been dancing samba last few nights? The answer is simple – you dance samba!


No, but seriously we needed a break, so the next day cured our sore muscles in a hotel pool with our Brazilian friends ...blue blue blue – pool, ocean and the sky... does so much good for the soul!

I think the philosophy of Carnaval is 'Let's go ecstatic, the night is coming!'

Tonight we were going to our favourite special Camarote Espresso 2222. And I knew that a dj friend of mine – Ramilson Maia is going to perform in Trio Electrico (on the truck in the street parade) with a carnival Diva – Daniela Mercury. It was all amazing almost transcendental. As they were passing our lounge the Diva was singing one of my beloved songs ' Palco' and that together in a spontanous duet with Gilberto Gil, whom I was standing almost next to...
So I enjoyed a dialog, as if I would be a part of it..I love to be in the right time right place :-)

The energy was so intense I was electrified and hypnotized. It was unforegettable and very strong, almost a kind of archetypical experience of unity with the singing masses, a whole nation repeating same lines of the song and waving their hands...and the Diva looking your direction....unity with something bigger than me myself and I, with something overpersonal and universal. Being so present, so much aware of every moment, absolutely excited...

That night we saw many more great artists. Among them was Fat Boy Slim. Criusing around balconies or different facilities or the Smirnoff Black lounge with amazing drum and bass, Brazilian or elektro music. Our Ben had a chance to dj there as well, so great!!

We were in the lounge of Smirnoff Black and here we got best service with the best fruity cocktails you could imagine...

***

Mission accomplished. It is 9a.m on the last day of Carnaval in Salvador. We made it – we have been working out hard along to never ending samba rhythms. It is time to go to hotel as in few hours we have to catch a boat to a nearby island - Morro de Sao Paulo.... to discover more of the beautiful spirit of Bahia.

But we will be back!!! Hasta la vista!!!