A tour round our plantation bungalow

Located just off the beach crest, our plantation bungalow doesn’t have many similarities to anything we have lived in the UK, but is well suited for here and this hot climate. Originally built in the 1930’s to house people that worked on Aride when it was a coconut plantation. They are made of granite from the island, combined with cement, on top of a concrete plinth with tin roofs. The concrete plinth helps to raise the rooms up to stop some of the wildlife (and may be water) coming in. There are limited mod cons, with electric from a generator, but no running water or toilet.

The kitchen has a gas cooker and electric fridge, (the latter is essential in this hot climate), but no sink or drainer and the cupboards are basic, but built to keep the mice out. We have a few shelves for storage, but only for items that can’t be broken into by mice, birds, lizards, ants and crabs.

Off the kitchen there are two verandas, one for washing up and storing drinking water, the other is our main living space, where we eat and relax in the evenings.

Behind the kitchen there is a large room which is our personal office and storage room for tools, snorkelling kit, fishing gear and all other possessions. There are no windows in this room, so we have decorated it in bright white, to help us see with the dim lights here in the evening.

The bedroom is just big enough for a bed and one cupboard and chest of drawers. The bed has to be in the middle of the room so that we don’t get wet through the leaky roof when we have a tropical storm.

We try to keep all our clothes hung, why do you think we do that?
Please excuse the pink sheets – they were all we could find here – but they do brighten up the room!

The legs of the table we eat off and of our bed are all stood in tubs of water – why do you think this is??

Around the bed there is a large net, do you know what this is for?

In this picture, there is also a coconut shell with a coil on top which you light, what do you think this does?

Then there is the bathroom, well this is a bit of a grand name for a room with a whole in the wall to take dirty water! As we don’t have running water there isn’t a bath, shower or sink and definitely no toilet. To shower we fill a bucket from the well and pour it over or heads, often adding a kettle full of warm water first, as it can be a bit chilly.