Enchanting Kerala

KERALA TOURISM NEWSLETTER

ISSUE: 196 DECEMBER 2009 HOME WHERE TO GO VIDEOS Newsletter Archives SUBSCRIBE NEWSLETTER

Interview - Gabor Toth, HirTV, Hungary

Mr. Gabor Toth and his group from Hungary, representing HirTV recently toured Kerala, as part of television coverage on travel and tourism in Kerala. Mr. Gabor is the Chief Editor, Foreign News department with HirTV based in Hungary.

Sharing his work-tour experience in Kerala with www.keralatourism.org, Mr. Gabor said that besides Kerala, HirTV will also be making a travel report on Delhi. He said that, these reports are basically of cultural in nature and are meant for Hungarian visitors to India. Mr Gabor also mentioned about his colleague-Zsombor Gyorgy, who is working for the daily Magyar Nemzet in Hungary, who would be writing travel and tour reports on Kerala, which are likely to be published by the end of December 2009.

It was the first time for Mr. Gabor and his team from HirTV to Kerala and they are pretty impressed by the land and the people. During their tour of Kerala the HirTV team visited Kochi, some of the backwater destinations and also the Capital City of Thiruvananthapuram.

When asked about what were the things that he and his group found exciting and different in Kerala, compared to other travel destinations, this is what Mr. Gabor had to say: "The friendly attitude of local people, their affection and passion for life and the emotional and spiritual experiences that we got during our visit are worth mentioning. We also liked the professionalism in various services and of course the beautiful environment. So, in my opinion Kerala can offer more than just sunshine and beautiful beaches, something very few destinations can offer. What makes Kerala real 'Home of God', are the people themselves."

Narrating his travel experience in Kerala, Mr. Gabor said that Kerala still has untouched Nature and lots of friendly people. And on the culture front, he said that his group had minimal exposure on that aspect of Kerala, due to paucity of time. He actually wanted to shoot local folk dance and the martial art form-Kalarippayattu.

Recalling some of the memorable moments during the tour of Kerala, Mr. Gabor said: "We met really friendly local people during our tour. We enjoyed the company of fishermen and made some beautiful shots by involving them. We also met a Malayalam filming crew and they allowed us to shoot their activity, which really turned out to be a big surprise."

And with regard to the local food, Mr. Gabor felt hard to distinguish between Kerala food and Indian food. He had a mix of both; but nevertheless enjoyed it all. "Plenty of vegetables, various milk drinks and exotic sweets, I liked all of them," Gabor said.

Impressed very much about Kerala on his first visit itself, Gabor said: "If I were to talk about Kerala to a person yet to visit Kerala, it would be like this: If you want to make real change in your life, visit Kerala. The person coming back from a visit to Kerala will be completely different from the one that left for Kerala."

Before bidding adieu to www.keralatourism.org, Mr. Gabor said that the travel reports on Kerala will be first aired on December 26, 2009 on HirTV, which he feels as perfectly timed, because of Christmas holidays and chances of more people watching television. The travel reports will be repeated three more times on HirTV, he added.