Karuna Farm

This is a blog I wrote in 2015 when I was 28. My then girlfriend and I travelled in India for 6 months. Here is the result

Source https://mikolashuzaurus.wordpress.com/

Today is Thursday 12th (I think...)

These last few days have been absolutely crazy. I'll try to give a quick recap as best I can, but please understand: I'm currently in bed; Tslil is falling asleep next to me; it’s pitch black except for a head-flash-light I'm using; and everything is quiet all around.

I'll explain how we got here.

We left Hampi Monday night at 7:30, more than enough time to catch our 9 o'clock train to Mysore. We arrived at the train station at 8:15, plenty of time, even to catch a quick dinner before we boarded the train. We go to find out the train’s status, and the guy says – and this is a direct quote by the way – “The train is more than three hours late, sir”. Hmmm.... yup, plenty of time to catch dinner.

The train finally arrived at 12:45, which technically is more than three hours late.

So we board our general coach and start our 12-hour journey to Mysore.

Pretty uneventful, we just slept most of the way; it's very comforting to know that Mysore is the last stop, we can't miss it.

We got off at Mysore and wanted to find some food and head to the bus we had to catch from Mysore to Kodaikanal.

After a half-hour trek through the big city that is Mysore (God, how I hate cities), we arrived at the central bus station, had a decent lunch, and went to inquire about our bus. After multiple arduous discussions at numerous information desks, we understand there is no direct bus to Kodaikanal (contrary to what the travel agent in Hampi told us). Of course. So we decide to head back to the train station to find out when the next train to Kodaikanal is. Half an hour of trekking later (with all our stuff), we arrive at the train station and discover it’s only a three-hour wait for our next train.

Finally some good news.

We board the train we believe is the right one. Apparently, the general ticket has no information on it as to which is your train, which does rather complicate things sometimes...

But we board the train, not exactly sure how long the ride is to Kodai', answers ranging from “10 to 12 hours” all the way to “This train doesn't go to Kodaikanal; you have to change trains at…” insert random Indian station.

What can I say? Sometimes, it's best to just let it go.

We slept on and off for 9 of the 12 hours of the journey, and Tzlil woke up, get this, one stop before we had to get off!

After twelve hours, she “randomly” wakes up, asks a guy where Kodai is, half expecting him to say you just missed it, and instead it's the next stop. You couldn't plan that if you tried...

So we gather our things and get off at Kodaikanal road, after 24 (non-consecutive) hours of general coach.

So, what now?

Now we need to take a bus from Kodaikanal road, the train station, to Kodaikanal central bus station. Sounds easy, right? Lol..

Turns out the bus station is 80kms away, in the middle of a range of lush green jungly mountains. I’ll spare you the 4-hour packed local bus drive up that winding road; all I can say is, after 24 hours in general coach, your perspective on public transport changes.

We arrived at the bus station, had some breakfast, and were ready to tackle our final leg to Karuna farm. At this point, we decided to treat ourselves to a well-deserved taxi-jeep ride, instead of the 12- km hike from the station to the farm with all our gear.

We arrived.

Finally.

After being on the road for 36 hours, we we're finally there.

“Great, so how much is a room here”?

“One thousand and fifty rupees”

“I'm sorry, could you repeat that? It almost sounded like you said one thousand and fifty rupees”..

“Yes, one thousand and fifty rupees”.

“Gulp!”.

Our last room was 200 rupees, just so you have our perspective.

After much discussion and some pleading and negotiations, they agree to let us stay in a room in the dorms, which is currently unoccupied, for 700 rupees a night.

Not ideal, but manageable for one night.

Besides, turns out there's a possibility of volunteering for room and board at the hostel, so we decided to spend the night and see what happens in the morning.

The walk from the restaurant to our room is about fifteen minutes of hard jungle trekking, no joke. Muddy hillsides, rocks, and even a river have to be traversed with skill and care anytime we want to leave the room.

We get to the room, and I can’t say it’s impressive: not bad, but nothing special about it, certainly not 700 rupees special.

There’s one tap for all needs, and one sink. The complex has three rooms: ours, our German neighbour Okke’s, and the current volunteer, Nikola’s.

The water is freezing! Much colder than it is outside, which is pretty cold already. We couldn't start a fire because the wood was far too damp.

“How damp?” you ask. Well, I couldn't light a piece of cardboard with my lighter; that's how damp..

No shower, freezing cold in our miserable room, we decided to go to the community area. We met some nice, interesting people there, but it didn't stop raining the whole time. We decided we would have to try and hike our way back in the rain.

It was a nightmare!

I can't describe that walk back our first night.

We had one flashlight between the two of us, we were moving about two paces a minute, the rain was getting harder and we had no winter clothes.

A nightmare.

(End Scene 1 – fadeout – the words “One week later” appear on the screen.)

Today is Thursday 19th; it's funny just how much can happen in a week.

Although it feels like we just got here, the days are jam-packed, and we go to sleep exhausted every night. Things seem to have moved pretty far for one week.

I'll describe where I am..

Tslil and I are just about to go to sleep in our lovely, half finished, cob-cabin. (Cob is the mud building material used for green building.) We'll carry on building up the walls tomorrow.

Confused?

Ill try and explain, but I must warn you. I know all the details to this story and I'm still baffled by just how we got here...

It was our first morning in Karuna and, feeling pretty miserable after the night before, we set off early to town to buy some supplies.

We were discussing our situation on the way. Not really sure what to do, this weather and the price for a night were not what we expected. But we had heard about a guy from Canada who has an organic farm nearby. Maybe we can work out some kind of arrangement of volunteering for room and board.

We decided to go find out more. We arrived back at Karuna to find the famous Canadian, in the middle of what looked like an intense conversation about the high nutritional value of organic vegetables.

We decided to sit and wait, but the conversation didn't seem to slow down. In the end, we started to play a game of chess, agreeing to approach him the following day about the subject.

Once their conversation had finished, he got up, had a few words with the manager, then turned to us and said: “Hey, I'm Heart. You're the Israeli couple who were looking for me?”

Stunned,we look at each other.

“Yes.”

“Well, you wanna come have a tea and we can talk things over?”

“Sure, yeah, that would be great.”

We cut our chess game short to go and sit with him for a three-hour tea.

The guy wasn't an encyclopedia; he was the internet.

Any topic, he had such depth of knowledge, and, when it came to permaculture and green building, Wow! You couldn't stop him.

After a monologue of over an hour, he brought us up to speed on his situation.

He had begun construction on his house about a year ago, had a few programs with volunteers, then, the owner of Karuna started making things difficult. Hart had to hire local Indians to help, but became so frustrated he stopped all work and shut himself off from the world for four months.

We were his first volunteers in over four months.

Now, at this point he has to house sit for someone until February, which means he has an almost finished house (missing a few walls and such) that needs to be built, and, if possible, lived in, to watch over everything until February.

Which brings us here.

After much deliberation and discussions, pro and con, we are right now spending our second night in what Heart so aptly termed, our “love-cabin”.

Tomorrow, the milkman will arrive with fresh milk for our morning chai. We’ll heat some water and have a nice hot shower. Then, we'll head to town to buy some ingredients to cook with in our fully equipped kitchen. If it rains, we'll stay in and build up the house. Tslil will cob up the walls, and I might do a little carpentry.

I heard a lot about India before I got here.

But nobody told me about this...

I remember a cartoon of Calvin and Hobbes I saw when I was a kid. Calvin's father is telling him that life is unfair sometimes, to which Calvin replies: “Yeah, but why is it never unfair in my favour?”

Well, right now I feel like life is unfair in my favour.

Namaste to you all.

Posted using Partiko Android