For many these days, Easter celebrations amount to a Sunday roast (typically lamb) with the family and a quick hunt for chocolate eggs in the garden. Not so the Germans. Over there, Easter begins long before the Easter weekend, as people prepare for the upcoming festivities. And in Bavaria, they really push the boat out.

Eggs are blown out and their shells painted in bright colours to be hung on Easter trees and anywhere else you care to think of – on bushes in the garden and traditionally at the village well – since it is the source of life giving water. Easter baskets are laden with goodies – eggs, chocolate eggs and candies, Easter ham and Spring flowers. Egg shells are buried in the garden to ensure a good harvest.
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Karma Group’s love affair with India stretches back to the early nineties – indeed it was here in the subcontinent that it all began! So we’re hugely excited to announce the imminent launch of a brand new resort – this time in the Himalayan mountains: Karma Dharamsala!

Surrounded by the lofty peaks of the Himalaya chain in the province of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamsala is famed for being the adopted home of the Dalai Lama and a haven for Tibetan culture in In India. Set amidst fragrant cedar forests on a steep hillside high in the Kangra valley about 200km west of Tibet, the city is fringed by the snow-clad mountains of the Dhauladhar ranges, whose peaks reach well over 5000 metres.

Much of the Kangra Valley is swathed in green thanks to the innumerable streams that provide irrigation and is widely considered one of the most picturesque valleys in region.
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The Dragon Tale
In Hoi An Vietnam, also known as the land of the ascending dragon due to its unique geological shape, dragons are no fairy tale. According to an ancient creation myth, the Vietnamese were descended from such a fantastical creature, albeit with a little help from a friend, who, in this particular cosmic act of procreation, happened to be an obliging goddess (hence the origin of the Vietnamese proverb “Con Rồng, cháu Tiên,” or, “Children of Dragon, Grandchildren of Gods”).
The dragon symbolizes yang; but it also epitomizes power, intellect, longevity and nobility. It reflects the prosperity of the nation; but it also brings about rain, so vital to agriculture.
This most impressive of all creatures in Asian mythology has inevitably undergone as many transformations as Vietnam has undergone dynasties. However, the first in a long and illustrious line of them, Giao Long, was part crocodile (due to the fact that the Vietnamese lived near rivers, hence their veneration of the reptile), with elements of serpent, cat, rat and fowl thrown in for good (and symbolic) measure.
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