Advertisement
After the heat of Jaipur and Agra we were happy to start to head north - our destination was a very small village Kottabagh in the state of Uttarakhand. After an overnight train trip we showed up in this tiny village with instructions to go to the local teashop, the owner would help us reach the farm in the hills. Getting more and more excited to see the farm we jumped in a jeep and took off. We were warmly welcomed by Chris a Swiss wwoofer who had been at the farm for a week or so. The owner wasn't there but there were two local guys who were there to help farm and cook . Neither spoke any English but we got the gist of things pretty quickly. Our first impressions were pretty good, the location was superb: about 4 acres on the side of a hill looking down a dried-up riverbed. It was much cooler here in the hills. During our stay we would see plenty of local wildlife: Deer, wild hogs, plenty of monkeys and lemurs, and beautiful peacocks. Some in mid-flight which is an extraordinary sight, particularly when you saw them flying beneath you as you walked
along the hilltops.
The work itself was not very strenuous, preparing fields for sowing ginger, tomatoes, corn etc. It was just a few hours a day and in return accommodation and three meals a day. We started really early and had to finish before it got too hot. We enjoyed the physical labour, earning ourselves a few blisters on our soft unworked hands! Chris had just recovered from feeling pretty ill and sure enough we both started to feel pretty lethargic and experienced cramps. Perhaps the local water was not so good after all, but there was no real alternative.
.
The owner came and joined us after a couple of days and as we had been suspecting we found out that the organic part of the farming was not part of any philosophy; simple things like composting were not done and there were plans to develop the land into a resort. This and a few other things around the land (ie rubbish disposal) meant we weren't inspired enough to stay for longer than about 8 days - while we tried to make some changes we didn't feel these would be followed once we left. However, we still enjoyed
working on the land, chatting over dinner and walking into town. Tourists don't pass through the village apart from to head to the farm so we were a real novelty and a walk in the village meant stopping for several chais in people's homes and often stopping to play a game or two of Karom (finger billiards) - English was limited but that didn't stop the friendliness.
Being away from busy hot aggressive cities was great and we are keen on doing more Wwoofing but the response of Indian Wwoofing hosts in the northern states has been disappointing, all but two out of many emails went unanswered. We didn't expect it to be as organised as Wwoofing in Europe or the US but we had hoped for more response. However we will be back later in the year and will apply for some of the projects in Rajastan and Gujurat which looked really inspired but it's just too hot for us at the moment to be working in those areas.
Anyway well rested and restored by our time on the farm we headed onto Ramnagar which is popular because of the nearby Corbett Tiger Reserve. Our intention was
to spend some days here and do a tiger safari to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. We set off for our safari with a nice group of folks in a jeep in the hope of seeing a tiger but not really expecting much! The park is beautiful with loads of deer, peacocks, monkeys and (reportedly) tigers. We managed to just miss a tiger but did see the pawprints. For us the highlight of the afternoon was a beautiful fish owl that locked us in his gaze with his yellow eyes.
We stayed in the lovely Corbett Motel in a huge mango orchard and got invited for tea by the friendly owner Karam. He also took us around the orchard and explained how they scare off the bats and birds who love to tuck into the juicy mangoes- they have some towers and give some guys a few lids to cause a hell of a lot of noise... (which can disturb your sleep)!
Karam also invited us to a wedding he was organising for his cousin- as he expected 10,000 (!) people one or two more would not cause much of a problem. We were tempted as we really wanted
to stay and then to head up north via the pilgrimage sites lining the north east of Uttarakhand. that whole area - Almora, Joshimath etc looks amazing. However we had no time as we had an appointment to start a course at an ashram in Rishikesh.
We had been in Rishikesh a few weeks earlier and hadn't been particularly inspired by any of the ashrams, many were still crowded (and fairly dirty and fly infested) after Kumbh Mela, when millions of pilgrims travel to the Ganges to bathe (think of those pictures of hundreds of Hindu saddus with their tridents ). However in Ramnagar we bumped into a couple who we had met in Rishikesh. They had just been in the Phool Chatty ahsram in Rishikesh and rated it highly. We decided to take their recommendation and joined the last yoga course of this season.
Phool Chatti is over a century old and is beautifully set on a bank of the river Ganges. The programme, which was specifically designed for novice westerners consist of yoga, meditation, chanting and meditative walks. This included some novel experiences such as laughing yoga which does actually make you laugh- a lot! Our
day would start at 5 am with a dip in the freezing Ganges, good preparation for meditation at 6. We would finish at 9pm with some good breaks to read or consider the appaling lack of an ashram wine list.
Each evening there is Pooja (worship) at the temple followed by chanting and dinner. The last activity is a half hour meditation till 9 after which silence is observed by all on the programme. Unfortunately for Eric this was pretty difficult to observe due to a sudden case of Delhi belly- a sleepLess night ensued.
The last evening we had a camp fire on the bank of the river with a nationalistic song competition- the UK contingent's attempt at the Beatles All you need is love was trumped by Eric's emotional rendition of Andre Hazes' “De Vlieger”.
The last day our teacher Lalita-ji took us to a wonderfully remote temple to conduct a fire ceremony. We all sat around a fire-pit to chant a mantra 108 times while ritually feeding the fire with sandalwood chips and ghee. At the end you cast in a piece of paper on which you have written a few things you wish to rid
yourself of.
We both enjoyed the quiet surroundings, the chance to practise yoga and the walks followed by swims. Halfway the programme we also took to sleeping on the roof which was both cooler and allowed for star gazing. We learnt a great deal about the Hindu religion (which was interesting although we'll never be adherents to any organised religion) and our yoga asana practice certainly took a step up. Some of the other yoga practices such as hosing your nose out with a pot of salt water each morning we will skip in the future, but all in all an it was an energising beautiful experience!
Our next destination is McLeod Ganj where we finally hope to get a bit cold from time to time. It's also where the Tibetan Government in exile resides so with a bit of luck the Dalai Lama will be home!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.175s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 19; qc: 73; dbt: 0.1211s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Lou
non-member comment
WWOOFing at the farm near Kotabagh
Hello, thanks for posting your blog, it was useful for us to read as we are heading to this farm tomorrow from McLeod Ganj (How did you find McLeod Ganj anyway? I think it is a lovely place!). Just want to ask a couple of questions... 1) Did they not have a water filter on the farm? Did you have to drink tap water? 2) What changes did you try to make? I'd like to know and I'll be able to see if they have improved on anything and jet and let you know... we are staying there for a while if we like it. All the best, Lou