A night in a religious retreat and a day in paradise

The night passed peacefully enough. James put his mattress out on the balcony outside the room, despite the huge number of enormous flying beasts he clearly felt that was preferable to sharing a room with the snore monster...

I woke a few times to the sounds of weird animals calling and the morning bird chorus at about 5am. When I woke I saw a huge spider crawling on the other side of the room. Later James found it and not wanting to tempt fate splatted it. It had blue blood. Very odd.

As promised I took some more photos from just outside the room... We are at nearly 500 metres and were above the clouds first thing this morning.

As you can see the location is simply stunning. Its a shame the room isn't up to the same standards!

I was due to present at around 10.40am, but the day started late and got later and later. In the end my session was bumped until Friday morning. That was quite a relief actually as I wasn't happy with my presentation. So I re-wrote big chunks of it later in the morning.

After lunch we went to a nearby organic cotton farm. The soil was so sandy I was surprised anything grows well. Here as in other poor farming communities I visited the lure of a TV seems to outweigh lots of other things you would think people would want first. On a basic mud and wood hut there was a huge satellite dish. I guess it's the human need to know what is going on that drives this.

The farm was very neat and tidy, more so than equivalent Indian farms I think. No rubbish anywhere to be seen.

There was little cotton to be seen as it's only just been planted, but there were some spectacular views and a very friendly goat.

It wasn't far away, but the bus needed diesel on the way back so we pulled in for some cold water and a brief rest. While we were waiting a simple horse and cart trundled by.

Everything here seems laid back and so very green. Its really a nice place to be.

Back at base it was just getting dark and I could see lights on in the small houses in the valley. A lovely place indeed.