Photo - View from the balcony

Looking down towards the bottom of Vashisht village on a rainy day. The road continues down towards Manali.

Photo - view from the balcony

Looking over towards Old Manali

Photo - Fran's Chai (tea) shop

Everyone knows how much I love my tea. With my own wee tea shop in the room I can have my 5 cups in the morning to waken me up. Oh, and Colin has the odd cup of coffee. Gone are the day sin the UK of the nespresso machine and ordering coffee on-line from Europe. Now he has to settle for Indian instant nescafe. He's not too happy about that!

Photo - our balcony on the top floor of the house

Tiger, the guard dog, lazing in the sun at the door to our room. The kitchen is what you see at the far end.

Night - times in Preetam and Champas

We moved up into the top floor room. It is very spacious and bright, even so Colin still managed to break his toe by stubbing it on the leg of the bed. The views from the balcony are really breathtaking. At the far end of the balcony is an outside kitchen. We only used this for making breakfast and sometimes a little lunch. We still went downstairs in the evening for dinner in the kitchen as too many laughs happen down there to miss it.
After dinner we tended to watch Hindi or English 'action' movies or play on the play station. Not normally things we would do in the UK (I had never even seen a play station game), but doing these with Preetam is an absolute scream. He is like a little kid and gives a running commentry of what is happening, even when the film is in English. It is his running commentry that makes you laugh so much, as normally things that are happening change in his translation of it. For example when Indian ladies are a passenger on a motorbike they sit elegantly with both legs to the same of the bike. When he sees a Western lady on a bike and she is sitting with legs either side of the bike Preetam will say 'look she is sitting cowboy style. Also if someone is parachuting out a plane they are 'jumping out with their umbrella up'. There were nights when I had to leave and go up to my room just to get a break from laughing.  The next posting will be photos of our room and views from the balcony.

photos

PHOTO 1 - Champa foraging in the forest

PHOTO 2 - Champa preparing goat for dinner

PHOTO 3 - Champa's hand knitted socks

PHOTO 4 - Champa off to the forest with her basket on her back. No shopping trollies here

PHOTO 5 - Sitting in the kitchen waiting for dinner

Staying at Preetam and Champa's house in Vashisht

Back to sitting on the balcony in our house in Goa with my cat Lucy writing this (You only have a cat for one reason in India but that's another story for another day!). It's Saturday night so Colin is watching Newcastle v Chelsea footie on the TV. Kick off in UK was at 12.45, so kicked off here at 18.15. Saturday nights here are still for football. No change from the UK for Colin. He has just shouted through from the sitting room for our green friends, for me to add that the best game he has seen this week was the Celtic European game where they lost 1-0. Anyway, back to where I left off in Vashisht.
It was great to be back in Vashisht and staying with Preetam and Champa, despite the fact that Champa gave me a big hug and stated in her broken english, using her arms outwardly for effect, 'you've got fat'. I think she meant I have put on weight since the last time she seen me. There's nothing like being straight to the point!
The days here are hot with clear blue skyes yet, from the balcony, you can still see snow covering the higher mountains. Some days are cloudy but not many. The nights though are cold. We don't tend to go out in the evening as the path to the village is pretty tretcherous in the dark. Everyone who is staying at the house tends to congregate around 8 o'clock in the kitchen for dinner. This makes for a great laugh with different nationalities and different translations of what you are saying. The eating arrangements are - grab a seat on the floor and Champa serves your food on a metal plate. Most nights the food consists of vegetables and rice and it is hard to believe that she can vary this so much and make it taste very different and really good. The vegetables are often what Champa finds during the day when foraging in the forest. She knows what to pick at what time of year. I don't know what a lot of these vegetables are but taste good anyway.
Eating veg and rice every night might sound boring, but believe me it is a very safe bet. When we first arrived Champa cooked goat to welcome us. Luckily it was Preetam who was given the penis to chew on. Another meat night we had chicken. Belive me, everything goes in the pot. I had to manouver my way around liver, neck, beak etc to find what we would call a part of the chicken that you should eat. Luckily no chicken feet were in there. Apparently no feet or beaks are sold when you are buying a chicken, but I definately got a beak!
Colin and I were the only ones in the house who used a spoon to eat, everyone else just used their hands as is the custom. I think Colin just humours me in this aspect of eating because I've not quite mastered the art of eating with my hand. Indians eat with their right hand only as their left hand is for, to put it politely, cleaning their bottom (wiping shit). I would certainly mix things up. It was better when Preetem gave us a spoon to eat as he would give us a dessert spoon, whereas Champa would give us a teaspoon. Takes a long time to eat with a teaspoon!
Because having children in India is so important, and Colin and I don't have any, Champa decided to aks me a question in the kitchen in front of everyone sitting there. She looked at me and said 'are you still having the bleeding' while pointing downward at her bits. At first I didn't know what to say but then I remembered I was in India and anything goes.
 Anyway have to go now and have some food. Will up-date soon.