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Published: October 31st 2016
Kerala’s backwaters
We negotiated our way through the family holiday like the boats through the famed backwaters. Mostly calm and placid, gently drifting, sometimes swerving to avoid the clumps of water hyacinth a pest and potential hindrance to the centuries old way of life practised here. We navigated the varied tangled relationships, mother – daughter, father-daughter, sisters, sister-stepsister, aunts, cousins, step-cousin, mother-stepdaughter, father-stepdaughter, mother -son-in-law (actually out of law)and came out smiling.
This was to be a family holiday extraordinaire with family members travelling over varying seas and continents to meet exactly halfway, 5 ½ hours ahead for the London contingent and 5 ½ behind for the Australia mob.
Our daughter and her partner had truly chosen a magical spot for our get-together and I don’t think even they realised how extraordinary was the location.
Southern India is hot, sleepy, tropical and friendly. Our troop perhaps injected a touch too much liveliness into this traditional Indian family resort, Lakesong at Kumarakom, but the stirring if not shaking of the staff brought us much delight from the most exquisite towel art (surely the staff had passed Certificate III or equivalent NVQ with high distinctions?) to the special farewell
cake and sparklers brought out to our private dining on the lawn with many selfies thrown in for good measure. Five nubile young ladies may have encouraged the wonderful service, four of them blonde making them stand out in this state of flashing white smiles in polished skin shading copper to ebony.
Kochi airport was a delight, no hassling, no staring, no rubbish or apparent poverty. Of course this may have been something to do with the guard in the customs hall with a lackadaisical ak47 slung across his knees or the guard outside with his weapon propped out towards the car parking area fending off any possible terrorist incursion. Or maybe not. Maybe just the unhurried atmosphere and the nearly 100% literacy rate here. Certainly different from our last visit to the North of this vast country.
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The nine of us moved around in an amorphous mass not wanting to miss out on any activity that might be occurring. Yoga by the pool, sunset boat cruises, visits to the local school, table tennis, swimming and generally carousing. But one by one the dominoes fell. Seven of us in succession falling to the inevitable Delhi belly
Water lilies
Battling against the ubiquitous water hyacinths– but wait we are a long way from there!
Rick Stein’s India had encouraged me to find the perfect fried karameen (local lake fish) and by sheer chance our first backwater cruise landed us on an island where we were served spicy karameen on banana leaves washed down by fresh coconut water. Simple but so luxurious as we sat in the fringed shade of the coconut palms.
We wanted to sample spices, to work out what they were, how the subtle flavours mixed and imparted flavour to the mostly vegetarian dishes we were choosing. One night we wandered along to the 5 star Zuri resort where one drink cost as much as dinner for 9 in a local shack restaurant!
We felt privileged to walk around the Shiva temple in Kottayam as the worshippers followed the priests around to all the shrines awakening the gods with music and flame, receiving blessings from passing their hands through the perfumed oil and lightly placing their fingers on eyes and mouth. We watched as the men in the line for the main temple entry removed their shirts, the women remaining covered, not being Hindus we were unable to enter
but delighted in seeing the gods garnished in marigolds and bathed in flames in each of the small wooden temple buildings surrounding the main temple.
Even the most ardent of fanning by a local lottery magazine did not improve the health of one of our number and we beat a hasty tuk tuk retreat back to dinner at the hotel after rapidly purchasing books and pencils for the Kumarakom primary school close to the hotel.
I had read that the Kumarakom bird sanctuary was not to be missed so off we trotted zipping off down the dusty streets in our butterfly emblazoned tuk tuk. As any avid twitcher knows the chances of seeing birds at midday were not the best and if we had consulted someone with some knowledge we would have been more prepared for a ‘nature walk’ with lots of butterflies thrown in for good measure.
New Year’s Eve was a highlight with the local boatmen coming alongside the party and finally their dancing overbalanced a whole canoe which caused us much delight. I think what finally tipped the balance was the spectacle of girls performing YMCA along the lake bank. Never been seen before
at Lakesong. We joined in with the games onstage, actually winning a game – we’re not sure how - and after we headed back to our rooms at half past twelve the young ‘uns stayed on dancing with the staff. The kisses at midnight had been a bit much for the shy youths and one actually stepped back in fright lest he were next in line.
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Ake Och Emma
Ake Dahllof and Emma Holmbro
Nice photo
That was a very nice photo /Ake