A long week­end at Nersa, a vil­lage on the Goa Kar­nataka border

The bam­boo tree flow­ers once in 12 years. And once it does, it’s of no use any­more. The bam­boo flow­ers attract rodents, which also tend to eat up rice grains, thus increas­ing the chances of a famine. That’s why bam­boo trees are destroyed once they flower.

This is only one of the sto­ries that our guide, David, recounts as we walk through the jun­gle, enjoy­ing the feel of the fresh air, walk­ing under the shade of the mag­nif­i­cent trees around and lis­ten­ing to the dif­fer­ent bird calls. It’s reju­ve­nat­ing, exhil­a­rat­ing and some­thing I can never tire of.

As we walked up what is called Bear Hill, David tells us to wait till we reach the van­tage point. From here we can see the whole expanse of the Londa range, a part of the West­ern Ghats, in the Goa-Karnataka bor­der. I savour every moment; the brush of leaves and branches against my skin, the sun­light fil­ter­ing in through the trees and the “ra-ta-tat-ta-tat” of a wood­pecker some­where close by.

David is way ahead, climb­ing the slopes as surely as a moun­tain goat. He knows these places like the back of his hand, hav­ing made this and the sur­round­ings his home around 26 years ago. Fol­low­ing him is Sara, a fre­quent vis­i­tor to India who’s come from Ger­many. Sara has spent much of her time, money and efforts since the tsunami hit the east­ern coast, par­tic­i­pat­ing in rebuild­ing efforts. It’s her life’s cause right now and this is her lit­tle vaca­tion before rushes off again on one of her causes.

We walk up sin­gle file, stop­ping to gather around David when he points out a tree or a med­i­c­i­nal plant and gives us some background.

A week or so ear­lier, when bring­ing another tourist up the hill, David had a close encounter with a bear (this is Bear Hill after all). This time around, his wife Mor­varid and daugh­ter Kat­rina make sure that he is equipped, just in case of a repeat encounter. David shows us the point he saw the bear and real­izes it was quite a close shave!

When we reach the van­tage point, we’re not dis­ap­pointed. The green­ery stretches out before us like a green car­pet, pro­vid­ing much needed visual relief for our tired eyes. We sit atop the rocks and notice lit­tle red crabs dart­ing in and out and David tells us they are res­i­dents. They come out in droves at the first sign of rain.

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David has another inter­est­ing story to tell. It’s like a fairy tale really and could well begin with ‘A long, long time ago’. David (barely around 21) and his wife gave up the city life (and mod­ern world) so as to speak and took the deci­sion to set­tle down some­where close to nature. They found land in a vil­lage called Nersa and moved there lock, stock and barrel.

Things were not all hunky dory. For nearly 7 long years, both of them under­went quite a few hard­ships try­ing to set­tle down into an envi­ron­ment alien to them. They had no elec­tric­ity and Mor­varid tells us how they could not lis­ten to music, except for BBC, on a radio that would run on batteries.

Every mon­soon, their area would get flooded and com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the out­side world would cease com­pletely as the only way out from their place being a flooded river. They were trapped for those 2–3 months with noth­ing but some sup­plies and their wits to survive.

And sur­vive they did : quite well too. The home stay they set up around 5 years ago is a cosy place nes­tled in the hills. A hid­den secret cocooned in the mys­te­ri­ous folds of the West­ern ghats.

Once the phone sig­nals stop and you’re dis­con­nected with the rest of the world, the sense of ennui and not want­ing to know what’s going on out there can set­tle quite deeply into the senses! The four days we spent there turned out to be pure bliss. Besides laz­ing around, and going for a walk in the jun­gle, and a swim, we did pre­cious little.

Mor­varid cooked us some fan­tas­tic meals and I ate like it was going out of style!

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From our lit­tle home : a machan on stilts — sur­rounded by trees, we watched the storm come in one evening. Loud thun­der­storm and dark­en­ing over­head skies held a lot of promise of vio­lent rain; and we antic­i­pated a lot of it, as we sat in our com­fort­able reclin­ing chairs, feet up, watch­ing nature’s frenzy.

But appar­ently, the next vil­lage and the sur­round­ing areas got all the rain. We just enjoyed a slight driz­zle after all that noise.

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Another day, David takes us out in his mon­ster (a mod­i­fied truck) that sounds and looks like one and there­fore the name. He takes us through a vil­lage and then deep inside the for­est, where sud­denly, in the mid­dle of nowhere : there’s a river flow­ing through, serene and peace­ful. And not a soul in sight.

The river has formed into 2 nat­ural pools because of some rocks in between. It’s hard to resist the cool waters and all of us plunge in. Despite the after­noon heat, the river is shaded on both sides by trees, their branches mak­ing sure we don’t have to face the direct sun­light. The water is cool and filled with a mil­lion tad­poles. But after a while, noth­ing matters.

It’s a scene straight out of an Enid Bly­ton novel and it’s only the thought of yet another deli­cious meal that pries us out of the water.

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Another time, we go around a tribal vil­lage set­tle­ment. David tells us that these trib­als live a nomadic lifestyle, build­ing lit­tle huts and set­tle­ments in dif­fer­ent areas and going into the for­est to find their liveli­hood. And soon then they move on to another area. That has been the way they’ve lived for cen­turies and now efforts are on to find a per­ma­nent res­i­dence for them. Despite this area being in Kar­nataka, most peo­ple speak dialects of Marathi, being on the bor­der of Maharashtra.

David knows many of the vil­lagers and they greet him as we pass by. He tells us how the vil­lagers used to refer to him as the mad gypsy when he first came to set­tle down in these parts. He had long hair, a hip­pie look and looked the part, laughs his wife!

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If you’re an ani­mal lover, you can make friends with the 3 beau­ti­ful, ener­getic Dober­mans : Scully, Bad­mash & Bahadur. Between bouts of run­ning like crazy chas­ing real and imag­ined ani­mals, or after each other, they’re a source of con­stant enter­tain­ment. Scully, is the mother and is more inter­ested in laz­ing around though while her pups frolic around.

You can do lots of things out here. But the best part is that you can also do noth­ing. And I am must admit with­out any guilt that I did a lot of noth­ing, indulging in long doses of rest and relaxation.

I would look for­ward to meals with much antic­i­pa­tion. Morvarid’s lovely flavour­ful and whole­some food did won­ders to my appetite (and weight)! I nearly put myself up for adop­tion, but I think they have enough on their hands. Three dogs can be a handful.

David and Mor­varid shut down their home­s­tay dur­ing the mon­soon months as it’s too dif­fi­cult to man­age in the heavy rains. The best months to visit are Sept/Oct and you can get more infor­ma­tion about the prop­erty here. Go only if you’re a nature lover and if you don’t mind being dis­con­nected from the world for a few days. Most days there are no elec­tric­ity, so you have hur­ri­cane lamps for com­pany. Not rec­om­mended for young kids, espe­cially the rest­less types who get bored eas­ily. But if you want to intro­duce your kids the joys of the jun­gle, sim­ple liv­ing and incul­cate their love of adven­ture, go forth and enjoy!

Yum­my­li­cious food, the most serene and bliss­ful place and great com­pany made for the per­fect long week­end : there was lit­tle I could com­plain about when we left after four bliss­ful days of quietude!

Facts:

Nersa is 500 kms from Ban­ga­lore and around an 8–9 hour drive. You can also take the train to Khan­pur. The place is called Her­mitage and is well known in the eco tourism cir­cuits. Rec­om­mended only for nature lovers who don’t mind being dis­con­nected and going with­out electricity.

Album: Long Week­end @ Nersa