I cooked my first substantial vegan dinner on the farm in Ujire, India using rice, channa dhal, and onion’s that I purchased from town and some local veggies that were growing on the farm.
I have since gotten more creative (standby for future videos!) but there’s something beautiful about the simplicity of a meal like this: It never leaves me feeling like crap and it always fills me up (thank you fiber)!
Here’s a quick tour of the farmhouse I’m staying at in Ujire, India. It’s relatively remote, about ten miles from town and about two miles from the main road.
The area where the farmhouse is situated is called Malajoti, a name given to it long before the current owner came into possession of it.
The mountains you see are part of the Western Ghats, which is “one of the world’s ten ‘Hottest biodiversity hotspots’ and has over 5000 species of flowering plants, 139 mammal species, 508 bird species and 179 amphibian species”.
I’ll work on making another video of the areas around the farm, which are really worth seeing!
In this video I contemplate a feeling of content that I began to experience after spending one full week living the lifestyle of my dreams.
This video was shot on my first night staying alone on a remote farm in Ujire, India.
I’m still working on correcting a few annoyances with regards to making videos (for example, I say “umm” and “you guys” way too much). If you have any other suggestions for me, please let me know. I’m shooting for semi-structured clips; I don’t want the entire thing planned out, but at the same time I don’t want to be umm’ing throughout the whole video.
If you’re following me on Twitter, you might have seen my last two updates about reaching Ujire safely. This is my one week anniversary here in India and its been amazing so far. I’ve seen and experienced so much, I haven’t really gotten sick (besides a mild case of travelers diarrhea), and everyone I’ve come in contact with has been so incredibly helpful and generous.
I’m currently staying alone in Ujire, on a remote farm about 9 miles from town. There is some electricty here, but it’s solar powered (running on batteries at night) and the phone is wireless (basically a CMDA cellphone-type connection). For Internet, I’m using a Windows XP laptop that was already here — it uses a dail-up connection and Internet Explorer 6 (ugh!). My cell phone still isn’t working (there were issues activating the prepaid SIM).
I can use the laptop for doing very basic things like checking my email (GMail usually takes a minute or two to load every page), but everything else is painfully slow (it took me 30 minutes to respond to 8 comments on my blog!). The isolation, remoteness, never ending heat, and constant sweat have all made me shy away from using my laptop to write, however I have been taking my camera with me.
After getting such an awesome response on my first video blog, I’ve started making a lot more video clips (thank you to everyone who commented!). Unfortunately, the dial-up connection here on the farm means I have to go into town to upload anything, but if you can be patient, I can assure you that the clips are awesome!
Staying on the farm alone makes me feel like I’m on a remote island somewhere — or like I’m on one of those TV shows, Survivor or LOST(I haven’t watched a single episode of either, so I’m only guessing). The view here is incredible and I’m surrounded by mountains and jungle. The locals have seen tigers and elephants nearby and there are so many different types of tropical birds with incredible colors and songs.
There are some other really cool things about this place, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. The videos will tell all!
I’m planning to head into town at some point this week, so you can expect videos and pictures soon! Until then, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me (I love getting email and comments!).
