A huge pile of wasted jute sacks waiting to be turned into beautiful paper.

Waste coconut and palm products are used to boil fuel the burner to boil the jute.

After boiling, a pile of messy and flimsy jute ready for pulping.

The first stage, this machine literally minces the jute into pulp.

Like porridge.

Another machine for bleaching and colouring.

Here is where the guys actually make the paper just by dipping a big mesh frame in and pulling it out again.

They use nylon sheets to seperate the pieces of A1 paper.

Different depth frames are used to determine the final thickness of paper, 130gsm or 240gsm.

All laid out and ready for squeezing.

Ready to have gallons of water squeezed out on the press.

Forcing the water out.

Hanging the plain paper to dry, between 1 and 7 days depending on weather.

Malc attempting to hang a sheet without ripping the corners off, succeeded too!

For some papers they literally apply paint by hand.

Painted paper hanging.

More paint with metallic too.

Lovely colours.

This is called a calendaring machine, quite simply rolls the paper out flat.

After rolling.

Here is a pile of paper which is actually our paper destined for UK.

To get rid of the rough edges, some people prefer it left as it is, called deckle edge.

Getting the chop.

More paper ready for chopping.

Notice the silk strands within the paper.

Waste silk.

The old but very functional factory near Chikmagalur. BG Handpaper.

An old well at a colonial house in the coffee region.

A noodle press, notice the holes for forming the noodles.

Coffee Beans, this was in August, in December they turn red and are harvested.

Amalgamated Bean Company. Home factory of the famous and good Cafe Coffee Day brand throughout India.

Our beautiful room at the Taj Hotel in Chikmagalur, shame only one night although the food was crap, surprisingly so was the coffee!

A room with a view, Taj Hotel again from balcony.

Old Hindu Temple at Belur.

Same pic, different angle.

Inside temple area.

More inside Belur temple.

Our regular driver and his family, drove for us for about 18 months and we still don't know his name!

Another family shot with Malc & Jen

Lovely little chap, we presented our driver with enlarged pics from this day, it was like we'd given him a million pounds!

Little girl and little boy, she was 6 and could speak near perfect English, much more than her parents.

Happy families.

Another shot from inside the temple area.

Colourful countryside.

A country scene outside our drivers village home, he lives & works in Bangalore, his family are 4 hours away!

Outside the house, as usual we were the talk of the village and everybody had to come and have a good look at us!

Brothers, sisters, grandmas and great grandmas, I think!

The end of our weekend just on the approach to Bangalore. Our naughty driver picked up his phone and didn't notice the jeep ahead had stopped.

Hardly any damage to the other vehicle thanks to its spare wheel.

Radiator fluid everywhere, we're not going far in that.

The front of the jeep we hit who then hit another car which promptly buggered off.

Nasty, about 1500 pounds worth of damage which meant our driver had to sell all his wife's jewellery, we helped a little.