Hi everybody,

On my first day alone in India, I made friends with a young boy called Mutu. He was working at the guesthouse and had offered to take me to the waterfall in Hampi if I hired a bike. Sure enough, the next day I hired a small scooter and after a 10-minute drive we parked it near a banana plantation and proceeded on foot through rice fields and down the bed of what was left of the river in the dry season.

As we walked and talked, I found out that Mutu Kumar’s family did not have the money for him to continue his studies. He was working so that his 12-year-old sister could finish her studies. In order to pay this semester he had borrowed 3000 rupees ($65) from the owner of the guesthouse and was to work for six months to pay him back. He basically earns less than seven Maltese cents a day. He cooks, cleans, fills the water tanks and does any other odd job that needs doing.

With the sound of the waterfall getting louder and the formation of the rocks getting more and more interesting, I knew that our destination was only minutes away. Mutu insisted that I swam only where he told me because some tourists had died swimming in the underground tunnels. With a thin brown finger, he pointed me to a large natural pool and gave me clear instructions where to dive from so as not to hit the bottom. I was dying to get in after the heat of the walk. The water was marvellous, sprinkled with tiny colourful tropical fish.

I was happily doing an on-the-spot kind of breast-stroke when I noticed that Mutu was nowhere to be seen. Minutes later he emerged from behind the boulders, jumping with joy because he had found a hat in a hole. He then jumped in and played in the water like a typical 13-year-old.

About two hours later we were joined by a 31-year-old carpenter from New Zealand. Chris had been travelling too and we exchanged travel tips and thoughts about India. We laughed at each other’s stories and adventures. As the sun got warmer, and the place started to fill up with people, Chris suggested that we visit the lake on the other side of the river. Besides offering a nicer swim, he said, the sunset from the village close to the lake was a must see. I asked Mutu if he felt like a swim in the lake. He seemed keen but cautiously reminded me that it was on the other side of the river. Thinking nothing of it (after all, if Hampi is situated on both sides of the river then there must be a bridge to join the two halves? Wrong!), I drove down to the river, some 200 steps downhill, and then I saw the crossing: a handful of large bamboo saucers floating around on the river.

The only way for us to proceed was to put the bike in one of these floating cups and cross the river. So a few minutes later, there we were, in the middle of the huge river in a floating cup, with gigantic rocks bulging out of the flowing water. I have never felt so tiny. In less than five minutes we were on the other side.

We stopped for some freshly squeezed lemonade and then made our way to the lake. It was enormous. Some boulders lying around on one side offered a nice dive – up to 10 metres high. We jumped in from the highest point and splashed around for what seemed like those hours of endless days on the beach when we were kids. Taking up the suggestion of Chris the Carpenter, we drove to the village close by and enjoyed the sunset. As it lit up the bright green rice fields with its final warm rays, the sight was spectacular.

But we hurried back to the river because I didn’t want to do the crossing in the dark. By the time we got back to the guesthouse, I was exhausted. I showered, ate a delicious plate of home-made macaroni with fresh tomato and garlic sauce and got ready to pack myself off to bed. I thanked Mutu and wished him goodnight. In his expressive eyes, the sad blurry look of ageing he had in the morning was gone. Instead there was the smile of an innocent child who, at least for one day, had lived like a 13-year-old kid.