Blogs from Kerala, India, Asia - page 5

Unnikrishnan didn’t want to just preserve his family’s ancestral home in the village of Painkulam, Kerala. He also wanted to offer an authentic and traditional place that Kerala families could use for family functions and reunions. “They’re going to hotels and modern places these days, instead of doing what they traditionally did—gather in the family home.” So with that in mind, and with his background in construction, he tackled the challenge of renovating the home, a 150-year-old structure not lived in full time since 1960. The result is remarkable. Gleaming red laterite stone walls are trimmed with wooden door and window frames and carved wooden panels. Teak columns salvaged from the house interior and concrete columns that look like wood support a long veranda. The third story roof, formerly a low attic that helped insulate the ... read more

Today is the day after Thanksgiving. We taught Dennis, our program director, about this US holiday, and he thought it was good to have a special day for offering a general thanks, but to whom? For what, exactly? People from India do not understand what Thanksgiving means for most, or many, Americans, but then we do not understand many of their holidays either. One thoughtless woman toasted, "Happy turkey day!" which demeans this lovely holiday completely. Gratitude should be the main theme, the focus of this day. This is our second day on the Spice Luxury Cruises houseboats. There are three boats reserved for our group: the Tamarind, the Pepper, and the Fennel. The boats are all built similarly, made of bamboo, and all have thatched roofs. The Tamarind has four rooms, the Pepper has two, ... read more

After a local breakfast of dosa we checked out of our room early and headed off with our tuk tuk driver. This drive was even more ridiculous than yesterday’s - he met a man on a motorbike we had to follow down narrow dirt tracks to the point we had to get out and walk! Fortunately we soon came across the water and after climbing through other houseboats we reached ours. She was perfect in our eyes - clean and tidy. A lovely sitting and dining area at the front, an upstairs with seats and matts to lie on, and a small double bedroom with reasonable sheets and a bathroom that was passable as long as you didn’t look too closely or try and have a shower... We set off on our cruise just before midday. ... read more

We should currently be moored up on a house boat somewhere near Alleppey, enjoying a romantic evening meal cooked by our private chef under moonlit skies.... Instead we remain where we have been all day. Our room at the Blackberry Hills Resort outside Munnar. The taxi was supposed to pick us up at 830am. Unfortunately due to land slips on the road out of the hotel and between Munnar and Alleppey he was unable to get to us, or to get to Alleppey. We were initially hopeful that the highways would be promptly cleared but as an hour or 2 turned into 2pm and then maybe 4pm we soon lost hope. It gets dark around 6ish here and the drive is a 4-5hr one. Given there were further landslips during the course of the day the ... read more

Monsoon is back. After being very lucky with the weather the past couple of days the rain returned yesterday evening and hasn’t stopped since. Now we were warned about monsoon but I rather naively thought that meant short sharp showers in the relative warmth. Instead we have had continuous torrential rain with brief interludes of light rain. And it’s cold! Aware of the poor forecast for the morning we decided to have a late breakfast. Our usually stunning views consisted of a white out as we were quite literally sitting in the clouds. We decided a visit to the tea museum was a perfect wet weather activity. We meandered out of our hotel into the tiny hamlet at the top of the drive. There were lots of smart taxis for residents of the expensive local hotels ... read more