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That’s precisely what Miguel Quental, a young Portuguese backpacker did, last November, according to a report in the New Indian Express (dt Dec 9, 2009).

What makes his effort unique is that despite the travel advisories issued by the West post the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks, Miguel was among the few intrepid travellers who decided to go ahead with their itineraries, terror or no terror.

A wise decision indeed, in retrosepect, it seems to the Lisbon camera operator who works on corporate and documentary films for a living.

Miguel’s India story began when he landed in New Delhi on Nov 26, 2008, armed with a base-model handycam, a gift from his dad. For the next
17 days, Miguel travelled across India, shooting places, people and anything and everything else that caught his fancy.

The result was a one-hour long video sans audio, which Miguel says was a concious decision, as he was in a ‘different’ culture, ’9,000 km away from home.’

Now for the twist in this tale. Somewhere along the line, Miguel came to know about the first ever Kerala Travel Video Festival being held by Kerala Tourism together with YouTube. And he promptly edited out the Kerala part of his India video, making it into an 11-minute video journal titled ‘Now I Know Why They Call You God’s Own Country.’

The video won Miguel the first place in the fiercely contested competition which had 200-plus entries. The competition was organised to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Kerala Tourism’s official website www.keralatourism.org