EC-Rider Travels

I had a lovely gentle morning, waking up early to the loudest birdsong, I think I have heard since I was in the jungle. I wandered into the garden to see if I could see any of the vocalists, but they were well hidden by the forrest. There were monkeys leaping around in the trees which was lovely and possibly the reason for the lack of visible birds. Breakfast was brought to me in the garden, including delicious raisins which Arun had sneaked off and bought for me yesterday! I looked up to see a black eagle flying over head which was rather special.

I was then taken on a lovely ‘nature walk’ with Sudhan. Every time we heard rustling in the undergrowth and knew it was a bison, it was a … wild chicken!v Very beautiful and fly incredibly fast – sadly Emma they cannot be domesticated, otherwise of course I would …….

More monkeys, several giant squirrels and a lot of bison poo but sadly no bison. There were banana and coffee plantations, protected from the bison by old saris hanging over barbed wire – the human scent keeping them away! You also have a cheery demon face hanging on your fences, with nice fangs to ward off any bad spirits. We came to a small house with an area in front where coffee was drying in the sun, behind this was the skinning machine – it was not the most modern but still working for the robusta coffee, the lesser quality, sold for instant coffee.

Sudhan also explained about how pepper corns are harvested. They are planted at the base of any ol’ tree which they grow up like vines, producing bunches of pepper corns, some red and some green. Green ones are dried to make black pepper/corns, the red ones are soaked in water to remove their skins and make white pepper.

There were the most stunning wild flowers everywhere, again ones we all pay a fortune to have in our houses!

We were back by midday, which was followed by a bit of R&R and then another meal! A light salad apparently.

Later in the afternoon Sudhan invited me to go and see the farm, on the way he pointed out and tested me on a number of fruit and spice trees which were growing here and there. My non-existent sense of smell rather let me down, but it was fascinating to see tamarind, cardamom, allspice, wild chilli, nutmeg, bayleaves, figs (latter two very different from ours) all growing. The monkeys were loving the tamarind. We also saw the smaller leaved arabica coffee growing.

We ended up at the farm where I met a lot of very sweet goats and two beautiful cows, whose yoghurt I had had for breakfast and milk in my delicious South Indian coffee. There was a large area where the coffee was dried and passion fruit growing over a pergola.

Before dinner, I had a nice chat with Robesh who told me of his plans to expand the farm to include buffalo and chickens (not of the wild variety). Dinner was again delicious, I hoped I could resist, but each thing was more delicious than the last – finishing with something called bread halwa – beyond bad and beyond delicious! I thought I might lose weight in India!