When I first arrived on the Krishna farm, it was so surreal, almost like an out of body experience. Am I really living this? I felt like I was Leonardo in the movie the beach, or maybe more Virginie LeDoyen, after all I am half French.
Arriving at the farm reminded me of the scene when Richard, Françoise and Etienne arrive at the secret beach community in Thailand, and all the members of the “tribe” are staring at them, wondering who they are, where they come from, and what their story is. Just like in the film, there were people from all walks of life here, and we heard accents from 
all over the world (especially European). These people who were complete strangers, were soon to become close friends, co-workers and allies. As in the film, the first person we were greeted by was a beautiful looking African guy with a European accent. He showed us around and told us a little bit about the farm and the jobs people did on the farm, and then showed us where to go for lunch. Up to the temple, on the top of the hill. It was a bit of a walk, but a very pleasant one we would come to find.
During the day we would greet the gorgeous Brahman cows on the way up, and at night we would stare into a sky of endless stars. However today, on our first day, our new friend Egho drove us to the top. When we got the the temple, everyone was already eating, everyone seemed to know the drill, and know each other well. It was normal for them by now to sit on the floor on mats, and wait to be served their meal by one of the Hare Krishna devotés, as they are called. This must’ve been so normal to Egho after already being on the farm for a few months, so he kind of just left us there and went to get his meal, while Daniel and I ended up nervously looking around, not knowing what to do. Not knowing if there was some special etiquette we had to follow, and worrying that we might offend or mistep within our first few minutes on the farm. We slipped our shoes off, and nervously followed Egho’s footsteps to the sink area where there were a stack of round metal dishes waiting to be picked up and rinced. These metal plates resembled TV dinner plates or baby food plates with their compartments, and came with matching metal cups and cutlery. The sink was more like a trough, it was a metal basin a few meters long with a few taps running along it, so many people could wash their dishes at the same time. As it turned out, you washed your plate and cutlery before the meal, and you washed it after you finished and put it back on the stack.
On the first day at the farm, you are not expected to work. So we spent this first day being shown around and settling into our room -a shipping container, turned cottage. Each shipping container here is turned into three reasonably sized rooms, fully furnished with bunk beds, coffee table, chest or drawers, wardobe, and even some cool looking curtains. The room has a verandah, a proper roof to keep the Australian sun from cooking you, and a gorgeous view of the surrounding mountains and grazing cows. We could not have been happier. Wwoofing generally requires 4-6 hours of work per day, however because Daniel and I were working on making money through our online businesses –in order to be able to keep traveling– we decided to do what is called 50/50 on the farm. We worked only 3 hours a day (instead of 6) and we paid half the price for our room, which was next to nothing for two people. Had we not needed the room for our filming, freelance work and just general peace and quiet for all the stuff we needed to do, we would have been happy in the dorms.
The second person we met on the farm was Roberto. He was a straight edged Italian from Rome. He was not too impressed with the farm when we met him, we asked him what he thought of the place, and he looked at us as said “it is so-so”. This did get me wondering of course, is there some sinister story beneath all the happy smiles and faces, like in the movie The Beach? Alas, this was not the case and within a few weeks of us being on the farm, and being Roberto’s neighbor in the shipping container, we witnessed his extreme transformation from a stressed out, resisting anything new, negative, big city, short haired, Versace-wearing Roman, to a happy, adventurous, positive-vibed, long haired, farmer, now wearing a bandana and hippie pants like he was born in them. Turned out Roberto just needed a bit of rainbow-lovin’. He loved his Italian compatriots, but yearned to better his English, and become friends with people from other parts of the world.
“My name is Melanie. So what else do you need to know? Stuff about my family, or where I’m from? None of that matters. Not once you cross the ocean and cut yourself loose, looking for something more beautiful, something more exciting and yes, I admit, something more dangerous. So after eighteen hours in the back of an airplane, three dumb movies, two plastic meals, six beers and absolutely no sleep, I finally touch down” (Kinda quoted from Richard, The Beach)
Images courtesy of Figment Films and 20th Century Fox
You must add this film to your list if you LOVE to travel. It is based on the novel by Alex Garland, which is an incredible read.
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