All Organic

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A relaxed start to the day. Breakfast followed by conversation and a spot of training in the kitchen


We visited the beautiful Jain temple across the road and the caretaker gave us a mini tour. The building was white marble, with exquisite decoration everywhere.


We were driven to our friends new eco village, which is being built on the outskirts of Indore. It is their organic farm and they are developing part of it into an eco resort. 15 rooms, organic restaurant and a swimming pool. It should be completed within the next 6 months. 


Much of the furniture, doors frames etc was to be made from beautiful old wood imported from Rajasthan. It looked as though it had come from some old palaces and havelis.
We looked around the farm at the organic vegetables and fruit. In India they grow everything. Self sufficient is normal! They also had a number of cows producing their own fresh milk.

Back in town we were dropped off in the centre of Indore so we could visit the Ganesh temple.


The temperature is definitely hotting up. Darryl's extra head hair and facial insulation needed removing. We walked past a local barber and the rest was history...

Cleanly shaven, hair trimmed, head massaged, lotioned ... followed by aftershave. A very thorough and skilled performance for the grand price of 90p. We also kept the young videographer busy.


The Ganesh temple was busy as it was Sunday. It contained lots of small temples and the main statue of Ganesh. Selfies kept us busy for some of our time and the kind man on the shoe storage shared his chai with us.


We received a message from our friend telling us all about a food festival taking place about 10km away. We found a bus stop and waited for an ibus. We didn't need to wait long and a bus appeared. To say it was full to bursting is not an over statement. A few people got off and a few people got on. The rammed bus disappeared into the distance. Soon another bus arrived. This one has to have space for at least 2. No it did not. It also trundled off into the abyss. 3rd time lucky, we got on the next bus. Men at the back girls at the front. We were crammed in like sardines. Breathing was fine however trying to get anything from a pocket just wasn't going to happen.

We asked a few people if they were heading to the food festival and the answer came back as yes. About 2 stops along everyone (50) got off. Only 5 remained. We started to worry as all of the people we had asked had now gone. We checked our map and we were nowhere near the food festival, we still had 6km to go. The bus continued just a little and then that was the end of the line. We had to get off but we were nowhere near where we wanted to be. We asked the man at the ibus station if he could help. His friend appeared and helped us find a little minibus crammed with people. This would take us to Fagun Gardens where the food festival was. We both got a half seat.


At our final stop we disembarked. The food festival gates appeared!


We paid our entry fee, walked a little further and we saw that the place was pretty busy. There was food stalls, clothes and what appeared to be a flea (retro?) market. First stop for us was Gopal crisps. It was a large stall promoting crisps from Gujarat. We got to sample the whole range and watched a short movie of the owners. When we were free to go we walked away with 2 carrier bags of crisps. 2 of every flavour as a gift. Wow, that is a lot of crisps!


We tried a few more small samples, looked at some cool oversized lazy clothes and listened to the live band. We ate at a stall which let us try some food but we paid for some of it which was a bit wierd.

We had enjoyed our time at the fair but it was time to leave . The local buses had apparently finished but we managed to share an auto with 2 students back to the ibus station.

The bus drive back was much quieter. We visited a Gurudwara and were offered food. 2 men kindly reopened the temple so we could look around. Next  to wash down dinner, we drank rose chai at a 'Christmasy' stall and it was really nice.


A short walk home, lots of chatting to our friend and his family. Bed.

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