Amod - Buva -Samni - 19 km / 12 miles
Tahir returns us to Amod in the car at 6am, a full moon glowing, no breakfast to be had. A short walk out of Amod, we see a Roma camp rising for the day. We cross over and make our presence known as the women prepare rotis over an open fire and the men bathe. They have a Massey-Ferguson tractor with a water supply tank hitched on back. The smaller children are occupying themselves with a broken kite while an older boy throws rocks at a monkey taunting him from a rooftop. I take photos of the children and when they see themselves on my phone they become engaged and we have some fun taking group selfies while Erico wanders deeper into the camp to meet with the adults and take his photographs. The next several miles are along the main highway and we have the company of those large and powerful long-tail monkeys. I’m somewhat nervous with them bounding from tree to tree while I’m watching out for trucks but they certainly wake up the day. When we turn onto the Dandi Path once again the monkeys are suddenly gone, there is little traffic and the scenery is fresh and fertile. Workers are out with their sickels in the green fields of cotton, music is playing. Goats and buffalo run ahead of their young herders. We arrive in Buva hungry and thirsty and I’m excited to see an elaborate dovecot in the square as I had read about them in Weber’s book. A young vendor is just opening his booth for the day while his wife casually towel dries her long black hair. Erico stops to buy biscuits and water and they ask us if we would like tea or coffee. Naturally I say YES! Little did we expect to be escorted through a dark storage room leading into a lovely garden and 3-storey modern mansion with a giant flat-screen TV. They inform us they are Patels as we are seated on the sofa and left to talk with the husband while his wife prepares tea and serves us deep-fried wafers, bits and bites and water. Shortly, the father comes in to greet us. It is all more formal than we have yet experienced but very hospitable. When done the young husband, refusing payment for Erico’s purchases, escorts us to the local peepul tree where Gandhi had spoken. The tree is encircled with a seating area so we sit in its shade to reflect a while. I am watching a man across the way straddled on a parked motorcycle, a second man standing up close to him. I’m curious about what is taking place between them. Suddenly I realize the biker is having his ears cleaned! When the job is done the ear cleaner heads over our way. Erico admires his embossed leather satchel then- what the heck- decides he will get his ears cleaned too. The barefoot ear cleaner pulls out his assortment of stainless steel curettes and gets to work in a very professional manner, picking a pea size ball of wax from Erico’s ear, smearing it onto the back of his thumb. We’re both alarmed at this production and when he’s done with Erico I decide I better try it also. Although not at all uncomfortable my ears didn’t produce much wax. After our rest, relishing in our clear ear canals, we wander down the road where we’re invited by a woman to come in for a drink of water. We enter her humble but spacious home where we are seated and drink a cool glass of water and enjoy just looking at one another- her husband, mother and several older children- in the dim light. Once again we know we are loved when we exit Buva.
The route continues along the quiet Dandi Path past fields sprinkled with trees and an occasional lovely breeze. We cross a little bridge over a creek pausing to stare into the dark waters below. Erico mentions that snakes like the cool of these sorts of damp areas. He tells me about the Amazon, how if this were the Amazon we would see four snakes. We continue walking and I notice the reeds by the ditch at the side of the road quiver. We move into high alert when we hear a strange mawing sound and a rustling in the shrubbery. Suddenly Erico shouts, “There’s a snake!” I see its head turn and glimpse the rat in its mouth as it slithers into the field. It was big and dark but we have no idea what species it was. We carry on in shocked silence while passing some beautiful mosques. Erico has sent a photo of his ear-cleaning episode to his mother in Brazil who replies that earwax is important for natural cleaning of the ears and shouldn’t be removed! Our day is lurking with danger! We walk the full 17km (10.5 miles) without a true Day Halt and meet Tahir in Samni. He is excited because he has found us two nights’ accommodation in a private home- perhaps misunderstanding that tomorrow is our rest day and we had asked him to book a hotel in Bharuch because we are in need of a little more comfort and some Western food. There is a large banyan tree at the entrance to Samni, its hanging roots and tangled trunk painted in multi-colours, home of a sadhu. Erico disappears behind the tree into his shelter for photographs. When they return the sadhu sits cross-legged on a bench and blesses us in turn. Tahir then drives us to Bharuch where we book rooms in the Hilton Hotel for four nights in stark contrast to the sadhu’s banyan tree.