Furnishing The Guesthouse

The offseason gave us ample of free time to prepare the guesthouse in a much better way for the coming season. Our very first year taught us many things to improve on regarding business. After building a big size mud stove, most works in the kitchen was taken care of. Our focus was on making the living room and guest rooms better. As we would host mainly backpackers, there had been no need to build private rooms like big hotels. Usually, backpackers travel in a group of 5-10 and as their focus would be to save money they would stay in shared rooms. We had 2 big rooms upstairs where 6 people would easily accommodate in one room. Those rooms had no furniture like bed, wardrobe, table or chair. We had placed 8 mattresses on the floor only. That way we had saved a lot of space for more guests to stay. There was one big private room downstairs next to the living room/kitchen. That had a double bed, wardrobe, table and a chair. Kind of luxury suite preferably for couples. Also, we had kept Noor's all toys in the corner, as that room would be used by her when there would be no guests. When some couple would come to stay in that room, we had to warn Noor to not enter the room for the sake of not getting any accidental traumatic memories. 

The mattresses which we had for the first season were not that good and comfortable. So we decided to invest in good ones as that was the only thing that mattered in the room. The nearest town to buy anything related to furniture was 22 km away from Salli. We were thinking to buy one more double bed which we had planned to keep in the living room and turn that room also for guests. Along with that, there was a big need for a wardrobe in the house. We would be keeping our clothes in the trunk till that time. There were many things necessary to buy for the house. It was a surprise how we managed to survive the season with so many visitors in a bare minimum house. There were two more essential things missing in the house. Fridge and Washing machine. Even though the temperature in the mountains would be cooler, some days would get hotter more than usual making the food go bad. And seeing Madhu tirelessly washing clothes every day, the washing machine had become a necessity. We decided to buy everything in one go as transportation had cost us more if we had planned many trips. That would be a back-breaking task to carry all those things all by yourself 200 meters uphill through the forest. We had already asked our neighbours for help so that was a little relaxing.

 

The day came when we went to a nearby village called Draman to buy furniture. We bought one double bed, 2 wardrobes and 8 bamboo chairs. That was all safely loaded at the back of the rented pickup truck. We left Draman to make a small halt in Shahpur where we had bought a fridge and washing machine. The pickup truck was completely full. Madhu and Noor were sitting at the front with the driver to guide him to Salli while I was sitting at the back keeping an eye on things from falling down the valley. The beauty of those winding roads, high mountains and deep valleys could be truly experienced only by sitting in an open pickup truck. When you would sit at facing the back of a vehicle, you would see roads coming closer to you as the vehicle would accelerate ahead. I was enjoying the journey knowing very well what was going to happen when the truck would stop at Salli. I called the neighbours as we were about to enter Salli. By the time we parked the truck, they were already down waiting for us.

Then the Herculean grind began. The most challenging part was carrying a metal double bed and wardrobe. The Heavyweight and its uncomfortably large size made it arduous to carry uphill. Four people at four corner had been our strategy to carry those mammoth objects through the stream, rocks, trees and bushes. We decided to let the metal objects reach home first till we had fresh energy. Then later when got exhausted we could have carried mattresses, chairs and those plastic machines. That took good 2 hours for us 6 people to finish the task successfully without damaging anything. The magical view in front of the house helped us to relax fast. Later Madhu made nice tea for all of us. The hard work made that tea taste even better. Kids were all excited to open up the fridge and washing machine which was safely packed in a cardboard box. There had a magical thing inside those boxes called bubble wrap. I remembered, as a kid how much I had enjoyed bursting those bubble wraps placed on top of our fridge. As soon as they opened the box, all kids jumped to grab the bubble wrap. I also had my fair share. After the neighbours left, I and Madhu were looking at how beautiful the house was looking with all those newly bought things.

Our Home Was Getting Complete.