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Published: March 10th 2008
Back from our month in India tanned,jetlagged and trying to make sense of the experience.
It was a journey of peaks and troughs:peaks were the expectations and troughs the reality on several occasions." Peaks and troughs" is borrowed from a man we met on our boat journey from Alleppey to Kollam and seems very appropriate. That journey was one of the highlights:an 8 hour tourist ferry, i.e open top deck and a loo,along the backwaters hugging the coast in Kerala. It was like watching a moving image of Keralan river life from women slapping washing on a rock to brilliant kingfishers flashing about. Occasionally the river would open out onto an enormous lake fringed with coconut palms with a brightly coloured church or temple between the trees. Sometimes music would be blaring out from speakers concealed in the palms round a temple which was an added dimension to our journey but must have been annoying to any villagers wanting a peaceful nap! As we got nearer to Kollam and the sea there were endless chinese fishing nets and big banana shaped fishing boats dotted with egrets,cormorants and fish eagles. Cries of "One pen"from the children running along the banks accompanied
us most of the afternoon. It seems there is some kudos to having a foreign pen but how one was supposed to get them from deck to bank without landing in the water was a mystery. Another mystery was how the famous"Hugging Mama"Ashram turned into a hideously pink block of flats. This appeared gradually, towering above the palms just beyond an elaborate white bridge with much speculation among the passengers as to it's purpose. Of course it came clear when the boat stopped at it's landing stage much to the consternation of the few people who were going there.
To go back to the beginning:
We started in Benaulim in Goa on the Arabian Sea coast. Spent a week on the wonderful endless sandy beach backed by palms and shack cafes where we could get an umbrella and a couple of sunbeds in exchange for buying lunch. Only occasionally was our sunbathing/reading/drawing interrupted by sellers of anything from clothes to mozzie-zappers, and on one afternoon by a little girl riding a bicycle wheel in strong winds along a tightrope temporally erected on the sand. When the wind got up in the afternoons we retreated to our hotel and the
garden with swimming pool, overlooked by the workers on the building site next door,including a continuous chain of sari-clad women who were balancing on their heads bowls of concrete which they dumped in the boxed shuttering for pillars. As the sun went down we had drinks on our balcony watching the egrets coming into roost on the big Banyan tree nearby. Although the room was basic and the beds hard we enjoyed our time in the Carina Beach Resort. A misnomer as it was a good 10min walk to the beach through "cobra-infested" paddy fields. It's ok -we didn't see a single snake there but Rough Guide warned readers about walking through the fields at night.
On to Kerala:Although we had planned to take the overnight sleeper to Cochin we ended up flying there which in retrospect was a good idea having spoken to those who did take the train!
Inauspicious start when we ended up in a hotel we hadn't booked, late at night, and the resident chef was drunk. However "The White Rose" became our base when in the town. It was a fairly new place, the rooms were clean and spacious;had shelves and cupboards(a rarity);and it
was run by two young men,Jackson and Shuji who were friendly and very helpful when it came to booking other places in Kerala.
Fort Cochin was quite attractive if one ignored the filthy streets and litter topped by goats and raucous crows, the latter of which there were many especially at dawn. So we ignored them and had breakfast in the Kashi Arts Cafe;another regular haunt with good food, pleasant art filled surroundings and chance to meet fellow travellers;and a mirror set in a lavatory bowl on the wall! Spent a couple of days doing the sights. Took "air-conditioned" Tuk-Tuk to Jew Town in Mantacherry and visited the Dutch Palace; actually 16th C. Portuguese and a small gloomy building with highly decorated walls of Hindu gods and goddesses and animals"giving themselves up to merry enjoyment". Also booked our next trip :
This started early Monday morning when we were crammed into a taxi with 3 other victims and subjected to a gruelling eight hour journey to Wayanad stopping briefly for Keralan breakfast:dhosas with veg curry and chai(Indian tea, milky and sweet). Later, another even briefer stop at the elephant farm to watch tuskers snacking on great bamboo canes with
awesome dexterity and having water from hoses poured into their trunks. These were temple elephants and used for the frequent festivals. It was a bit disconcerting to be told that they were dangerous if approached when feeding so an invitation to pat one was taken with some trepidation. I was happy to take photos from a distance.
That was it for stops before reaching "Pachyderm Palace" our homestay next to the wildlife sanctuary in the Northern Keralan hills. "Palace" somewhat of an exaggeration but had charm for all that especially our room:a rickety wooden hut on legs perched above coffee bushes. The dining room was boat-shaped, built in bamboo and in here we guests were fed with tasty Keralan food cooked by Venu the manager. He was a self-taught cook and came up with some interesting combinations of locally grown produce.
Realised in the night why there were dogs around when we heard one chasing off the deer from the crops. Of course being so near to the wildlife park it could have been elephants or tigers. We didn't see any of the latter just a freshly laid turd (Tiger,they said!) on one of our jeep excursions into the sanctuary.
We did see some elephants in the bushes and heard them strangely growling and trumpeting when they sensed our presence. Also lots of deer ,buffalo,monkeys, a couple of peacocks and a very long Rat Snake. This had the distinction of being the only snake we saw in India. Lack of binoculars didn't help but it was quite exciting never knowing what was round the corner. Cold enough for two blankets,the nights were quite exciting too what with a holey mozzie net,rustlings in the roof and imagining what was prowling around below.
Small world story here when 2 other guests,John and Norma, claimed to know Chris. It turned out that they had mutual friends who live near us in West Finchley, and they lived in Muswell Hill.
One evening we walked round to the local village temple to watch part of a Theyyattam ceremony performed by a man in an extraordinary costume,face and body make-up. Accompanied by drummers he made strange little dance steps while waving a sword or bow and arrow,occasionally plucking leaves from his headdress and presenting them to watching villagers. Of course there was a lot more to it but having no guide we had to remain in
ignorance as to the nuances of these long performances from before dawn to late night.
After 2 nights in the cooler hills, we along with Isabelle, another guest, had a shorter taxi ride over to Kunnar on the coast and "Costa Malibari" Homestay. This time the driver stopped to show us round a tea-dust factory among the tea plantations. Tea-dust is what we get in tea bags and used loose by Indians for chai?. The freshly picked leaves are fed through six grinders and then the paste is put on a conveyor in an oven for 2 hours. This produces the hot dust which is left to cool for 24 hrs before being sent to auction.
Costa Malibari was formerly a weaving factory and the 5 bedrooms were off the central hall where the meals were served. Curtains were hanks of brightly coloured cotton. A shady verandah was a very welcome spot after the heat of the beautiful,empty beach nearby. Empty that is apart from 2 men digging sand for a building site who on seeing us tried to sell a bottle of toddy,which is collected from the coconut palm and becomes more alcoholic with age. We declined the
offer! Lovely beach but alas it is dangerous to bathe in the sea here due to the undertow and strong currents. One of the other people we met here was Dariusz Klemens, a photographer who spent a lot of time in India and has some marvellous images on his website:
As before we had some delicious Keralan food along with local green-lipped mussels and the cook kindly provided Chris with meals without chilli as it turns him into a raging furnace. Unfortunately it didn't stop him getting a bout of Delhi-Belly. This was unfortunate as next day we had a 7 hour train journey back to Cochin.
Luckily full of Immodium, he managed the whole trip without having to go to the "facilities" and we arrived back at The White Rose in Fort Cochin later that night.
Trains:a very popular form of transport and we took the precaution of booking seats in the a/c coaches. However despite the clientele being clean and well dressed and having latest flat screen TVs pumping out Bollywood and ads, the carriages were badly maintained and sticky with dirt. This was a dichotomy which bothered us throughout our travels.
A weekend in Cochin;more sightseeing; then an even more frightening taxi ride to Alleppey. It was a hartal(strike)day so no service vehicles were allowed on the roads. However this didn't deter our driver who took the precaution of putting "Hospital Emergency"sign on the windscreen before setting off down the now empty road. Every time we came up to a group of marching strikers I had to act the sick patient. It didn't stop them threatening the driver especially the time he just avoided running one group down! The upside was that we made our destination in double quick time.
This was Kaits Home in Champakullam on the Backwaters near Alleppy and one of the "peaks"of our trip although the first night in the Heritage Room was a downer. Not only was it dark and gloomy it had an open-air bathroom. Novel, until one had to go out in the middle of the night and protect the bare bits from the flying wildlife. Luckily, the next day we were able to move to one of the rooms on the riverside with en-suite bathroom and a verandah from which we could watch the passing river life:endlessly fascinating including the man excavating mud in great
armfuls from the riverbed and dropping it into his wooden boat before ferrying it along to the fish trap which he and another were repairing. The trap belonged to Jossy, the owner of Kaits Home. He and his wife used a lot of fish in their cooking along with the ubiquitous coconut-all delicious and served in the rotunda built out from the bank over the water. We were entertained by stories of their travels in India by Danny and Sharon from Melbourne who had stayed far longer at Kaits Home than they planned as they loved it.
Jossy organised our next diversion:a day/night houseboat trip in a traditional rice-boat,a kettuvallom.
Picked up from the rotunda, our every needs looked after by three crew, we floated along like the Sahib and his Mrs! After an afternoon cruising along the rivers and canals we emerged into the enormous palm fringed Lake Vembanad where we moored up for the night. As the sun went down as a vast orange ball, we watched a Darter, or Snake Bird, fishing in the water. It's a cormorant with a long sinuous neck which emerges like a snake rearing out of the water, and then it
Papanasam Beach,Varkala
The view from Mom Lekha's verandahtosses the fish in the air before swallowing it. After another Keralan dinner(beginning to yearn for a non-Keralan meal!) and a game of cards we retired to our cabin for the night. Next morning, up before dawn, we had breakfast watching the sun come up as another vast orange ball! Then motored back to mooring at Alleppey where we transferred to the tourist ferry going to Kollam.( See beginning of this blog)
That night and the following we stayed at "Palm Lagoon" in a large cottage on Lake Ashtamundi :a lovely position but alas the chef was on" holiday" so the food was bad and we couldn't go anywhere else. Dessert was "pineapple"or "banana". The latter was proudly presented complete with skin on a plate and so woody as to be inedible;this was a "trough"! Still it was peaceful if one ignored the noisy fan and air-con: permanent companions to our nights. We could also swim in the lake which was a bonus and like a warm bath. However having no alternative place to dine we cut short our visit and headed off to Varkala just down the coast from Kollam.
Varkala is distinguished by the towering red
cliffs behind the beach and on which are most of the hotels,shops and cafes. It is also a holy place to Hindus who go down to the beach from the nearby temple for worship and to scatter ashes of relatives. We stayed in Mom Lekha's Rooms just behind this section of beach and at sea level so were able to watch these elaborate rituals performed by priests who sat in the shadows of woven palm leaves. The final part of this ritual was for the worshippers in white dhoti or sari to walk backwards into the waves and throw the flaming palm leaf held on their head into the water behind them. Due to the strong wind blowing off the sea this seemed rather dangerous to us but then H & S haven't reached this part of the world!
Mom Lekha's was a converted summer residence of seven rooms on the first floor of a 2 storey buiding with a roof terrace. Our favourite spot was on the 1st floor verandah overlooking the beach and it's endless parade of Indians,the women in intensely bright coloured saris, coming down for a ceremony or to watch the sunset;the roasted nut seller;and icecream
parlour on the back of a tuk-tuk(auto rickshaw). All this was more interesting than lying on the very hot beach where one either got sandblasted or swamped(as we did!) by the incoming tide.
"No 1 Beach Cafe" nearby became our favourite dinner haunt as we could choose our meal from the freshly caught fish displayed at the entrance. This was simply grilled and eaten on the lantern-lit first floor of this open wooden building. By this time Keralan food had lost it's charm so it was a relief to have an alternative cuisine. We were joined by Isabelle for evening meals. She was staying in the hotel next door and Chris had met her when he went for the first of his two ayurvedic massages there. Yes, these he enjoyed despite being heavily pumelled from what I can gather! The very first one he had was at the hotel in Goa and he emerged oily and floating two foot above the ground!
This was our last location before we set off on the long journey home. Train back to Cochin;plane to Mumbai;from there back to Heathrow unexpectedly joined by Vin,Sandra and Emma(Chris's brother,his partner and her daughter) who
had been in Goa. The long journey made more bearable by(Indian) Jet Airways :plenty of legroom;personal video screens;friendly staff ;and good tasty food. Couldn't do anything about the jetlag though! But, we have had a week to recover and now fly back to Sicily to pick up the campervan and continue our European travels. Watch this space.
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Phil h
non-member comment
wonderful experience
thanks for sharing your experiences, very interesting. We are off to Goa and Cochin in a few weeks, trip of a lifetime. May your travels bring you happiness.