Cultural Pursuits - Traveling a little differently!

Traveling a little differently!

Cultural Pursuits coordinates alternative and customized travel in North East India. Our expertise includes village stays, hiking, trekking, national park and eco park travel..........................lllllllllllllllll.......................
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Cultural Pursuits has been offering customized trips in North East India for the past ten years. We have developed a reputation for unique travel. We are ready to do and try almost anything no matter how rigorous.  If you can imagine it, we are likely able to do it, as long as it fits within our philosophy and goals in travel - based on established sustainable network standards.

Trips & Services:

Over the years Cultural Pursuits has travelled far and wide in North East India, experienced many amazing things and many amazing places and come in contact with many amazing people…

In all those travels however there have been moments of contemplation, are we doing the right thing, are we actually helping the places we go and how can we improve.  Each and every trip we go on brings different personalities in contact with us and the places we go, some are very relaxed and easy going, some have an agenda, or some are doing research.  And each time we come back from a trip we analyze the pros and cons of that particular trip.  No doubt with the internet people around the world know so much about places, but maybe sometimes they know too much or get the wrong information or are misled.

Many a traveler comes to North East India is in search of the ‘tribal’, that means many things to many people.  Some think of it as a place to see some wonderful amazing tribal person dressed in traditional cloths, and dancing around in the front yard of an immaculate thatch house, just for them to take a photograph of.  Or they have seen a coffee table book, a story or an antidote somewhere that they want to recreate on their trip.  They curse the cement houses or tin roofs, yet don’t put into perspective the ground realities.  Many seem to think that the areas we travel in should just remain the same and not develop and change.  As if a sheet should be put over these areas and taken off for them when they come, so they can take that picture perfect photograph.  Culture is every changing and not static, and goes through its ups and downs.  It is only if we really care and understand that we can help in maintaining important aspects of our own culture and of others, we need to empathize with the places and people we travel in.

Over the years Cultural Pursuits has experienced a particular type of traveler every once in a while, who carries their weapon of choice – an expensive digital camera, and a large telescope lenses to capture the prey, a tribal.  They are not so much interested in the person as a human being, but somehow will go to all odds to get that picture of some far out tribal in costume to take back home and mount on their wall.

To be honest Cultural Pursuits feels guilty and somewhat uncomfortable when we end up with clients like this. We are not saying don’t take pictures.. But let’s put some humanity in it.  These are people who are going about their daily lives..  We shall not explain further our feelings on this, you can gather our thoughts by the following:

Cultural Pursuits is taking a break for a couple months – December and February to start into the next phase of its existence.  We are building a few cottages on our Property, MaplePine Farms, about 25 km outside of Shillong.   We hope that in the course of building we can welcome a certain number of visitors and be open for stays in full swing by next October (if all goes well) albeit on a small scale.   We will be more or less settled in one place and offer our services and act as an  information base for Meghalaya in particular and North East in General.

Also after the couple months away from traveling we will open up with much more specific travel routes and trips for people.  We will do specific trips for people who often may want a specific trip, retracing places where their relatives may have lived or been during the British Times in India, research trips into specific areas that are discussed and both the client and we are comfortable with, expanding routes and areas that would help and give sustainable livelihood to people that are visited.  Along with this we will have 4 to 5 specific trips that are based on an itinerary which may be expanded upon.  We will no longer take trips that are just quick visits to vast areas of North East India where  little time is spent in any one area, and clients only seem to want to walk through villages – take a few pics and go on their way.

It is our feeling that when we visit places there should be a minimum time we spend, in particular village areas or less travelled areas, not withstanding cities, game parks or just general sightseeing.  We want to avoid ‘Cultural sightseeing’ and promote ‘Cultural Experiences’ – we have no qualms about driving by scenery stopping and taking a picture and moving on.  But we will ask that we all be much more cautious when it comes to people.

States of North East:

Most of the North East is now accessible to travelers. The remoteness of the area adds a degree of difficulty offering a natural protection and maintaining it as an appealing low volume tourist destination.