Kerala The Travel Show

Now on BBC News, it's time for The Travel Show.

Hello and welcome to The Travel Show, coming to you this week from

southern India. Later in the programme, I will try my hand, or

should I say, my face, at this traditional dance form. That is

still to come. This is what is also coming up. We are in New York,

finding out whether tourist dollars could save some of the city's iconic

churches. The latest global gadgets. This week, Dancing On Ice,

literally. (SINGING). New York is home to some of the world's

best-known gospel churches but as gentrification takes hold of

neighbourhoods like the Harlem, some locals feel they are being pushed

out. Our correspondent went to take a look. Harlem is America's most

famous African-American community and the cultural capital of black

America. Until recently, Harlem was off the tourist map. Once on by

gangs and drug pushers, today property prices have skyrocketed and

rents have almost doubled in the last ten years. Even the former

president of the United dates, Bill Clinton, has his office in Harlem.

This neighbourhood became known as sugar Hill, should remaining money.

If you had money, this was the neighbour that you moved into.

Harlem, I would say, is the most legendary neighbourhood in the

United States of America. (SINGING). Many visitors come here

just to hear the unique sounds of the gospel church choirs. In Harlem

alone, there are more than 400 houses of worship, which consist of

Baptist, Roman Catholic, Methodist and various other denominations.

This one goes all the way back to 1805... Gospel tours are listed as

one of the ten top visitor attractions in New York City and

tourists here are welcome as it. This is one of the last churches

Martin Luther King Jnr visited before he was assassinated and he

gave a speech here. Churches are struggling not only here in Harlem

but worldwide to maintain their congregation and we welcome visitors

to Harlem on gospel tours because it helps them to keep the lights on. It

helps them to maintain the property. And at the same time, they

are expanding their message. But it is not just the financial needs of

many places of worship. Gentrification is starting to make a

huge impact on congregation numbers, causing less wealthy

African-Americans to leave Harlem because of rising rents and property

prices. In the last five years, more than 20 Baptist churches and local

church groups have closed. This year, another three buildings are

earmarked for closure to make way for high-end apartments. By and

large, gentrification is a bad thing because what it means is that harm

is being remade not for the people who live there, who are part of this

demographic warehouse of the people who live in harmony less than $34

million -- 30 $4000 per year, but when they create those

3,000,000-dollar penthouses, that is not for that demographic, so it is

not a good thing because no matter how bad things were in the past, at

least you have a place to live which you can afford. At least you had a

church. Now, the church that was so valuable to the African-American

experience because it was utilised as a tool to liberate black people

from slavery and then to gain civil rights is being undermined by this

gentrification, which is happening so fast that it is in danger of

displacing an entire community. I want to point out to you folks the

world-famous theatre. It is a similar story in the Bronx, which is

my next stop on the gospel tour of the city. We are now crossing out of

Manhattan into the outer boroughs of the Bronx. The Bronx is a less

travelled tourist road, the birthplace of hip-hop culture. The

Bronx as we see today is nothing like the gangster movies of the

1970s and 1980s. There is a Renaissance happening here. We

arrive at the greater universal Baptist Church. It is one of the

oldest in the neighbourhood. This is the taller. We are about to go

inside and experience it first hand. The service lasts for an hour and

you are encouraged to join in. And we are soon hearing what gospel

church choirs are famous for. (SINGING). The sounds are uplifting

and feel part of something special. What an amazing experience. I must

admit that when I first got here this morning, was sure what to

expect, but the congregation made us all feel so welcome. It was an

amazing experience, amazing. You just felt really good and happy with

the service. We wanted to join in. It was fantastic. I have seen this

on television many, many times, but we were made to feel very welcome.

Churches here in the Bronx are facing the same problems as the man

Harlem neighbours. Gentrification. We are decreasing because there are

a lot of people moving out. A lot of people are dying. But they are

building. If you can just look out here, you can see that they are

continuing to build around here, so we have different people coming in.

Tourist dollars alone won't be able to save this truly amazing churches

but with additional support from governments and campaigns being set

up to save the local heritage, it is hoped you will still be able to hear

this unique sounds for at least some years yet. And if you are thinking

of heading over to New York any time soon, here are some of our top tips.

New York is often thought of as just the island of Manhattan. There are

four other borrowers that make up the city. The borough of Queens is

famous for its sporting venues but it is also home to cutting-edge art

galleries and museums. If you are a jazz fan, try the Louis Armstrong

house museum, still preserved as it was when he and his wife Lucille

lived there. And usually for a city, New York is 40 miles of coastline.

The boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn have the most number of

beaches. Summing up the city's beaches is prohibitive during winter

but you can still visit for a walk along the sand. And heads of the

Bronx if you fancy a green escape. Its botanical Gardens fancy 250

acres and contain more than 1 million plants. This year marks the

125th anniversary of the founding of the gardens and there is a series of

special events scheduled to celebrate. Entrance to the gardens

is free on Wednesday. Sundays and seasonal exhibitions as well.

Tickets can be purchased online. Time for your travel update. First

to London, where the city's biggest ever liked festival was so popular

that some of the lights had to be switched off. Concerns that some

areas were becoming dangerously overcrowded meant that organisers

had to temporarily shut part of the festival down. The four-day free

event featured installations from 30 artists, illuminating iconic

landmarks across the city. Millions of Catholics gathered in Venezuela

to pay tribute to the divine shepherdess in a religious ceremony

dating back to 1856. Today, around 2.5 million people joined the

procession, which takes place once per year.

Excellent wind and wave conditions resulted in a spectacular show at

North America's largest kite surfing event. Skills were put to the test

at the Lord of the winged kite surfing competition, which saw

contestants jumping as high as 11 one half metres into the air. Some

tourists and residents in Moscow were pleased to see snow returned to

the capital city after an unseasonably warm December. We came

for snow, we liked very much snow. It is different from our country.

Today is not so cold, so it is quite nice. 14,000 snowploughs and trucks

were put to work cleaning the city's roads and streets. In the UK,

8000 square miles of coastline have been given extra protection. It is

hoped that the new designation of marine conservation zones will help

protect habitats and species that are considered under threat. They

mean that 20% of English waters are now protected. Coming up later in

the show... I will be trying to keep up with the nimble footed dunces of

Kerala -- dancers. Hello and welcome to the famous

mountain range just outside North London. With the ski season well

under way all around the world, I have a set of gadgets for you that

will make you supercool on the slopes. Before we even get onto the

snow, let's be honest. A massive part of the fun of a trip like this

lies in the apres ski activities. You can bring some of those

extracurricular activities right onto the slopes with you, with shock

polls. These are for the skier who has everything. The unique thing

about these is the user can fill them with up to 75 millilitres of

their favourite drink. Overall, it is a ski pole with a unique feature,

sure to entertain as well as serve a purpose. These are a good set of

polls because of the straps that clip on and clip off. But in terms

of having a drink inside the poll, it is a novelty thing. I think most

able will wait till they get back to the Lodge before they have a drink,

write? Most sensible people, and you are sensible, aren't you? Aren't

you? One thing every snowboarder and skier needs to do is capture their

finest moment. You don't want to miss out on reliving something

completely awesome that happens on the slopes. The best way to do that

is with a little mobile camera. There are lots to choose from in the

market, including this brand-new edition. This tiny HD camera comes

with a built-in microphone. It works much like the camera is a high-end

smartphone, which begs the question, why would I want one of these as

well? It is quirky, but not really designed for adventure sports,

because you can't clip it onto your helmet or skis. You also need to

download an application to get the full features, like real-time

sharing and viewing what you are actually seeing. Me and skiing are

like that! I'm going to put this to the test. Are you sure no one will

realise? Great... That was exhausting, I love it, such

a rush! If you are like me, you will want to take your music wherever you

go, and the slopes should be no different. But safety is also

important, so here is a way of combining the two. This is a

communication helmet fitted with beats by Dr Dre headphones, allowing

the user to listen to their music virus smart phone or MP3 player. The

helmet is lightweight and well ventilated. It comes with a cable

that plugs into the helmet and your phone, allowing you to control track

selection and volume. The sound quality on this is really good, and

as a helmet it is snug and comfortable, but if you are a

beginner snipped skier or snowboarder, it is not recommended

that you have music playing while you are on the slopes, because you

will need to keep your wits about you.

To end this week we are off to India, heading south to Kerala, the

land of lush green forest, canals and coconuts. It is also the home of

Pappa Kali, an intricate form of classical dance that has been

performed here the centuries, and is high on the list of things people

come here to see. -- Kathakali. To learn more about Kathakali I have

come here to meet a man whose family have

theatre? Amazing! Central to Kathakali is the complex ritual

make-up, which turns the performers into supernatural beings, gods and

demon is. the make-up can take many hours, and

here it is applied directly in eyebrows, eyes, lips, fingers,

footwork. And all of these stories come from Hindu stories. Originally

developed as a way of teaching religious scripture to rival

audiences, Kathakali is now also a big draw for tourists coming here to

Kerala. I am very curious to know, how do you tell a story with your

eyebrows, your cheeks, your lips and your fingers? Can you teach me?

Kathakali has an alphabet accuses the positions of the hand. Show me a

segment of how you would use the alphabet to tell the story. Come...

What kind of eye movements do you have? This is getting excited... And

then? Sideways. I think it is me being an amateur, but when I try to

do with my vision blurs, but your vision doesn't blur? You focus in

the distance. Long-distance. That is the secret. Once you combine the

facial expressions with hand gestures, then you have a classic

Kathakali sentence. Something tells me I have somewhere to go before

could be understood. Bees... Team those moves with some fancy footwork

and you have a performance, in theory, at least. That is very good,

very impressive. I am not very good at all, am I? Imagine that all the

make-up on, the full regalia, probably about a 100 people looking

at you, and the Indian head to challenge is. About 47 degrees, I

think. The scrutiny of every single step and your eyeball movement, I

think I would crack under the pressure. Traditionally, a classic

Kathakali performance can go on for many hours, sometimes the whole

night. Some modern audiences have shorter attention spans, so the

artform has had to adapt. The original ones would go throughout

the night, everything is in detail, everything is intricate, and

nowadays we are condensing it for a 1.5 or two-hour programme. So we do

lose every regionality, what is done for hours and throughout the night,

that is not being shown now. But whether the performance is marathon

length all night for something more contained, the highlight of the show

is always the appearance on stage of this character, these steps were

originally choreographed thousands of years ago to captivate audiences

of today. That is all the time we have for

this week, but do join us next week, when Carmen is in Hawaii,

getting up close to one of the world's most active volcanoes. If

you listen very carefully, you can hear what sounds like thunder in the

distance. Apparently, this is the heat from inside the greater causing

the rocks from the outside to fall into the molten lava. You can keep

in touch with us by signing onto our social media feeds. All the details

on your screens right now. But from me and the rest of the Travel Show

team, it is