Over the next few hours

we climb steadily in altitude, greenery returning, the thin, mountain-hugging road studded with bleachy, paper skinned eucalyptus. Sticking my head out the window, I look down over the vertiginous, van-exploding cliff that edges the road and faint a little. We stretch our legs at the base of a waterfall sluicing through a high cliff face and trade foreign coins for flashy chunks of agate and mica gathered by entrepreneurs from the riverbed.









Ever-connected AT has furnished us with a house at a childhood friend's resort in the tiny mountain town of Ella. We arrive and lug our luggage up a steep, rocky road, rewarded with a funky collection of Miami coloured houses and a magical 360ˆ view over the breathing, vapoury jungle. We settle in, are served tea and I take a picture of a turquoise bee the size of my fist. The rooms are neat and comfortable. The bathroom is crowned by a hyper intelligent japanese shower pod like something out of a William Gibson short story on bathing. The Japanese are light years ahead in washroom tech, aren't they? This thing has at least six modes, a light, nozzles everywhere, an LED screen, radio, fan and a mysterious hair curler hose box that I think you clamp over your feet. The shower loses all its cache however, when I learn shriekingly that there is no hot water service and I am locked for a good 30 seconds in what is now a slippery, frigid HAL 9000 torture box.


We're the only guests there, and the young superintendent prepares us a dinner of three top notch curries, one with crisp red beets and another of crunchy snake beans, garlic and shallots. We drink beer and retire with open balcony doors welcoming in the forest air, exhaled by the uncountable tea plants of the plantation bordering the house. It's a great sleep.

Music- Brian Eno: An Ending (Ascent)