Once the other guests had arrived at the Hideout ( all Indian) and Hemants very cute 3 yr old daughter had also arrived for a few days ( she lives in Mumbai with her mum) Hemant took us on a tour of his farm. We saw cashew nut trees, pineapples, turmeric, star fruits, lemon and limes, mangos and papayas and loads of herbs. We were able to visit a tribe mans little house also which was interesting as it was all made of cow poo and bamboo. Inside there was a large wicker type basket that held a load of rice and the pressure of it meant that rats were unable to penetrate it surprisingly. The farm is shabby chic!!
Well what i mean is that it is not very organised and that is how Hemant wants it, entirely organic, some of the trees etc have just been planted by the birds dropping seed and he has kept it as so. He has aspirations to create a forrest, to get a grant/ funding in order to plant lots of trees in the tribal community land. His little daughter Ayaana was very cute, a proper little character. It amazes me how at three years old she can be so astute, so clever and engaging and be so confident and comfortable around visitors. I have known some three and even older age kids who just hardly talk at that age, barely make conversation other than making noises, crying, screaming, saying only yes or no and speaking in baby talk let alone still in nappies. Ayaana speaks three languages and was more than capable in having a conversation with us in English and the way she sat and helped prepare veg with her dad, asked questions and sat on the floor looking at him and listening and learning was fab, I have not seen that with many young kids I have known in the Uk, not at three.
After the tour of the farm Phill and I sat on the swing and ate our lunch which was again delicious. It was so healthy and so tasty, Phill had seconds..of course he did!
After some snoozing time under the fans as it was getting very hot we were summoned to the falls. There was a lovely family staying just for the day and we were fortunate enough to be allowed to travel in their very nice air conditioned car, albeit meaning their driver had to remain at the Hideout, the father drove us to the waterfall, following Hemant in another guests car. We arrived at a little tribal village and the cars were left outside a little house for us to walk about twenty minutes to the waterfall. On arrival I had already decided I wasn't going in as I suspected there to be snakes in the water and what with Hemant finding a deadly snake last night at the Hide Out I wasn't too keen on the idea to be honest. Phill got down to his swimming shorts and headed out with the daughter and dad of the family along with Hemant and I stayed on the rocks with the mum and took photos. Phill was shouting me to get in and so I thought 'oh well may as well' but i tried to persuade him that giving me a piggy back would be the best idea, especially as I had just seen what I thought to be a little snake in the water along with loads and loads of little fish and frogs but I was just being a jessie apparently and anyway it was too rocky to carry me....i think what he really meant is that I have eaten too much Indian food and he cant lift me. So I made a dash for it but did not feel comfortable but heyho. Once at the waterfall it was lovely, the water was very powerful, the sun had begun to set, the sky looked beautiful and there were goats grazing a few feet away on the rock face. We had an audience as a little crowd of locals on their scooters had begun to stand at the top and watch us, my first instinct was all of our cameras etc that were over on the rocks as by this time everyone from the party was under the waterfall but they weren't interested in them, they were just interested in other people and people watching and I think some of the men wanted to bathe and were waiting for us to leave as as soon as we did they walked down.
We walked back to the cars and headed back, on the way back Hemant needed to pick up a few things from the local market so we sat in the car and waited for him, it was dark by now. Phill nipped into the shop to buy some water and they wanted 20 rupees for warm or 200 rupees for cold water, thats 20p or £2 ish so we had the warm water! And Hemant brought a wrapped newspaper to the car with hot pakoras, yum. They were very spicy and we all tucked in, proper street food.
On arrival back to the Hide Out the evening meal was being prepared and so Phill and I helped a little along with other people and then we sat down to eat. My mum and Blake skyped us so we chatted for a while and then blogged and went to bed. I had slept ok ish the night before but this night I didn't sleep very well as I was full of bites, itching like mad. That afternoon I had seen a shed load of little black insects all over my side of the bed so Phill shook the bedding outside but I couldn't get that out of my mind nor the deadly snake nor the spiders that were bigger than my hand!! I got up about 7 ish and got showered and encouraged Phill to do some yoga with me, this is now day three and the day we check out. So, we do some yoga albeit Phill seems a little embarrassed as there are people around, I couldn't care less. After yoga we have some breakfast and then say our goodbyes and get into Mr Pintos car once again to be driven the couple of hours to The Waterstones hotel in Mumbai, I could tell we were staying at a very nice hotel by the noises Mr Pinto and his friend made on arrival. To say this was a nice hotel would be an understatement....so we checked in.
Location:Hideout
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