Jenny and Bhadra leave India

When we first met the 3 mad Aussies in Goa we got on really well. They were really interested in what it was like to visit the mountains and loved the pictures we showed them of Vashisht. When they returned to India in August this year, Vashisht was definately on their itinerary. They arrived here from Dheli in a whirlwind at 9pm at night. They were laden down with luggage (too many bags to count), the monsoon rains were coming down and it was very dark. We had to get 2 Nepalese coolies to carry their bags along the mountain path to the house.Colin walked back home with the coolies while Jenny , Bhadra and myself had a wee chai in Ranu's cafe. It was only when we were getting ready to set along the path I realised that they actually still had a lot of luggage that they hadn't given to the coolies. The thought of us making our way along a wet, slippery and dark mountain path without torches and laden with luggage seemed ludicrous and must have been a sight, but we finally made it to the house.
  

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They hit it off with Champa and Pritam, which was no great surprise. They talked to and made friends with everyone - the women who tend the cows, the women who cut and carry bales of grass, the shepards, every type of shopkeeper you can imagine and many other local people.

Jenny and Bhadra stayed in the two rooms on the middle floor of the house. This floor also has Jayne and Guy's apartment. Jayne and Guy are in the UK at the moment and Jayne had kindly said that Jenny and Bhadra could use her kitchen and bathroom during their stay here. Colin was speaking to Jenny in the apartment one day when he noticed a strange object hanging from the balcony roof outside the apartment, just smaller than a football size, with loads of hornets flying around it. The hornet's were 'making a house' (as Pritam calls it) for the winter. By the time Pritam got home it had grown in size considerably. Pritam came up to the apartment with Mani to destroy the nest - with Pritam on the job it was now a potential for disaster! Mani had a big stick and Pritam told him he was to go out onto the balcony (it's only about 1 foot in width), close the door when he was out there and bash the nest with the stick until it was completely destroyed. Poor Mani looked horrified until Jenny and Bhadra took over events and told Pritam they would show him how to get rid of it properly. They got a metal pole and wound a load of newspaper around it. I had to surrender my elastic hair band so they could tie it around the paper to keep it on the pole. They doused the paper in petrol and set it alight. Seeing a big flame Pritam, who was all for sending Mani to deal with it with a little stick, suddenly wanted to be the fire-thrower. Luckily the nest was burned without any major mishaps and surprisingly even Jayne's basket plants survived on the balcony.

Jenny and Bhadra were hadly here 5 minutes and Champa had them dressed in local blanket-style dress. Check the size difference.

The day we went for Sunday lunch and got caught in a goat traffic jam Jenny, being an Aussie bush woman, was in her element.

Jenny wanted to be in the thick of all this.

My favourite picture of the girls. Jenny on facebook, Bhadra reading and Champa knitting socks. Then it was on to a Hindi lesson with Champa saying words and the Aussies writing them down! It was a hoot.