A weekend in the countryside!

This weekend I went with my host mom and Janina to a small village in Safala. It is the most beautiful place 2 hours north of Mumbai. We were visiting some friends of my hostparents, they are originally from that village but now they live in Mumbai and own a bungalow there.

Day one:

While driving up there friday before noon, it was very hot! Both janina and I were wearing the most comfortable punjabi suits (Salwar-Kameez) so it didnt really matter. We talked all the way up there and had a great time. Half way there we made a halt at a dairy. We got the most amazing mango-lassi’s to drink, and we totally recharged for the remaining hour in the car...

Upon our arrival we were served the first of the many meals of the day. The moment we were done eating we went upstairs to change in to our festive clothes. (Janina and I looked fabulous in our sarees!) And we were off to serve food for the village! See, the family we were hosted by are in to a lot of socialwork for their village, and they had funded a giant food give-away, serving dinner for over 1000 villagers during a religious procession. So we helped hand out the meals for the locals! It was incredibly hot standing there in the sunny afternoon, but it was totally worth it! When we were about to leave, some villagers and the uncle who owns the bungalow we lived in came over and gave us a wool-shawl and a coconut each! We thanked them in hindi (Dhanyawaad/Shukhria)! :)

After serving the village we had gotten an invitation to go to a small farm half an hours driving away... When we came driving up the dirt road in the middle of the indian jungle, we came to a point where we couldnt drive any further. So we got out and walked in our fancy sarees and festive wear for the rest of the way, it wasnt that far, and since it was in the afternoon so the temperature was actually quite pleasant! When we came there we sat down on the porch of a small farmers house built in cow-dunk and sticks! We had energizing fresh coconutwater and ate an amazingly well prepared smoked fish-curry off freshly picked banana leaves! It was great!

I got a tour af the farm with one of the aunties. There were a bunch of banana-, mango-, sitaphal/custard apple- and guavatrees also coconut palmtrees, jasmin flowers, rice fields and the most amazing flower, an ethnic looking white lily, and it had the sweetest most enchanting smell I have ever experienced!!! We plucked some sitaphals and ate them while walking the fields and my host mom brought home a big bag of jasmin flowers that we were to use the next day!

When we came home we were to have dinner, but I wa soooo full from all the earlier meals that I only just tasted before I went to bed after an amazing, beautiful and very tiring day!

Day two:
We woke up at early (7 o’clock) and sat in the kitched drinking chai all morning while we were tying all the jasminflowers from yesterday onto strings that we could tie in our hair or offer to the god in the temple.

After lunch we all got in the car and drove through the sketchiest little jungle roads untill we arrived at the temple. We went inside, did prayers, got prasad (a couple of white sugar-balls some raisins and peanuts that you get in return for your worship) and then we went outside and fed the fish in the temple pond.

Then we walked down a small path and arrived at the beach (or as they spelled it in hindi: Beej)... The arabian sea was one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life! We rode the most beautiful small horsewagon (actually it was pulled by donkeys) and enjoyed the beauty of nature! The sun was slowly setting and it was arund 6 o’clock. A camel was walking on the beach, Janina and I got a ride on this huge fantastic animal, feeling the rythm of its steps while wathing the sun go down over the indian ocean, the camel was named ‘beautiful’ in hindi and that was excactly what this day was, Beautiful!

Me and Janina really wanted to go all the way out to where the actual water was (the tide was low, so there was over 100 metres of sand we had to walk to get to the ocean). Auntie saw that the sun was about to set, and told us that we had 5 minutes and not more! So we pulled up our salwars and ran as fast as we could out to the beautiful ocean. The black sand mixed with the seawater drenched our pants, but nothing could ruin the magical moment when we reached the edge of the arabian sea! We just stood there for a moment next to eachother, enjoying the silence and seeing nothing but water and sand ! A guy came over and took a photo of us and our amazed and happy faces, and then we went to a small jugle resort to have an overwhelmingly great meal of chicken tikka kebabs, grilled kingprawns almost the size of my palm, fish curry and fried bombay duck (a fish only available in mumbai, with very small eatable bones and a fantastic taste!) before we went home to the bungalow!

But the day was not over yet! Tonight was the 2nd night of the nauraatri festival (it means ‘nine nights’) and you are supposed to dance every evening for 9 nights in a row! Earlier today a woman had come to our house to teach us some Garda (the traditional dance that everyone does when dancing on the streets) so we were all prepped and ready after changing out of our muddy suits!

So first we just went outside the gate and danced with the neighbours, then we got in the car and drove to a bunch of different places, one even bigger than the other! we danced all night, had a blast and when we came home, we went straight to sleep out of pure exhaustion from this amazing day!

This morning we drove home, and I was(and I am still) extremely tired. So after dropping Janina at the station I went straight home, had my lunch and a nap :)

I didnt take too many photos since I have thought a lot about how I dont want to experience everything through the lens of my camera, the ones I did snap will be uploaded once I am done editing and sorting them out (maybe tomorrow, maybe next week)