Autumn visit to Malpe

We arrived in Badanidiyoor village (near Malpe) after a few days in Delhi and Bangalore. Chandan – my on-site manager – had done a brilliant job and unpacked the furniture, clothes, paintings and necessary equipment in the house that we are renting while Villa Malpe is under construction.  So we could move in without any bother from the minute we arrived. There were even cold beers in the fridge on arrival.  The 2 storey house has separate flats, so we’ve got the upstairs flat and Chandan’s family is downstairs

It’s a short walk from the house to the building site – 5 minutes to the beach and then another 15 southwards along the beach. The warm sea is too tempting to resist and invites you to walk barefoot in the water all the way.

Chandan and his family miss the mountains they come from, so we took them for a drive in the Western Ghats – a mere 40 kms from our site. The Ghat mountains aren’t anywhere as high as the Himalayas, but Chandan was satisfied that he can get on his scooter and feel the mountain breeze when he starts missing the mountains too much.

May-Kristin (who’s still in India) told me that she’s planted 5 coconut trees and 7 areca (beetlenut)  trees on the site – so we hope they’ll take root despite the sandy soil.

Construction back on track after a monsoon break

After a break in the construction process, Srusti Engineering (the contractor) has restarted the process. I had several meetings with both the contractor and architect. The result is a detailed progress plan and a recalculated estimate of building costs. A new site manager is in charge and he seems very capable.

After filling and stamping the plinth with red sand, the next step is building the walls – which should start this week. All the work is done manually, so even moving sand from where it is dumped to the middle of the plinth using spades takes a fair bit of time.