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Published: June 25th 2019
It may be a self-proclaimed title to lure in the tourists, but I think it's deserved. We had flown into the Indian state of Kerala, otherwise known as 'God's Own Country'. The literal meaning of the word Kerala is ‘The Land of Coconut Trees’ - which is pretty much spot on. Arriving late at night into Kochi airport, we decided to kip at a local hotel before getting the bus into the old colonial town of Fort Kochi the next morning. The first things we discovered were that: a) it was beyond hot (we had come in the hottest and most humid month of May, just before the monsoon hit); b) good accommodation was not expensive at all; and c) public transport was, from our point of view, so inexpensive it was almost free. Great for us as our bank balances were looking pretty sorry for themselves by this point.
Fort Kochi is on a small peninsula that is kind of part of Kochi, but as it's an old colonial port it is a more charming area. Arriving here felt like we had previously been living in black and white. The vibrancy of colour in everything is remarkable. Saris of
bright colours and bold patterns float past on motorbikes, flowing in the wind. Bright pink bougainvillea and vivid red flame trees sprinkle a brightly coloured confetti across the dusty red roads. Crumbling old colonial buildings with bold colour-washed stone walls and red tiled roofs, with deep overhanging eaves to protect the walls from the monsoon rains, line every road. The classic Ambassador cars, that look like bowler hats on wheels, tootle around the town. Where has the colour gone in the rest of the world?
We checked into a beautiful old Dutch heritage house with a lovely courtyard, where we were the only guests. This was the end of the season, and so we were benefiting from much reduced rates. This place was just over £10 a night including breakfast, and we were treated to some first class hospitality from the family that ran it. We went for a walk along the seafront, where hordes of locals were enjoying the beach and going for a weekend stroll with their families. Once again we were stopped on multiple occasions to have our photos taken with Indian families, normally with a cry of 'one selpie' and and child thrust in front
of you! Also patrolling the beach were the police, but in this case not an ordinary patrol but instead a car emblazoned with 'Pink Patrol' on the side, and two female officers standing by. Great to see some progressive stuff like this going on in India (although I'm sure the phrase 'Pink Patrol' would draw some criticism?!).
Dotted along the seafront are several wooden structures with large nets attached. Wooden beams are levered up and down using a clever system of ropes and boulder weights, allowing the net to move in and out of the water. The technology was imported from China over 500 years ago and is still used today. They are particularly photogenic with an Indian Ocean sunset behind. Fort Kochi is only small, but it is utterly charming to walk around, with plenty of boutique shops selling well designed clothes and handicrafts, lots of trendy cafés and restaurants, art galleries, and surprisingly a street art scene with Banksy-esque artwork sprayed onto the crumbling walls. This wasn't the India I had been expecting - Amy had previously been to northern India and had had a totally different experience. I was kind of expecting something perhaps dustier and
less well-off, and maybe a bit more hassle. Instead people weren't hassling (other than for photos), Amy wasn't getting any unwanted attention from the men (which had been something she had found difficult to deal with last time she came), and there were all these cool places to eat and drink! It became clear quite quickly that Kerala is not typical of India, and is particularly wealthy in comparison. The levels of education are also much higher here, and the region attracts a lot of domestic tourists who have the money to travel. To be honest we were both quite glad in a lot of ways, we have had a few months of more challenging travel and were looking forward to chilling out a bit more for the last few weeks of our trip.
Straight away we booked onto a local cooking course. One of our favourite restaurants in Bristol is Keralan, and we were hoping to learn some of the local recipes. Our teacher, Maria, was an encyclopedia of knowledge. She taught us how to make four different dishes in her home, all the while explaining at breakneck speed what spices should go together and when, and what
order to do things. Amy was lapping it up but it was too much information for my small brain to take in, so I just decided to be a judge of the final dishes. Everything was so tasty, so many fresh flavours - coconut, chilis, turmeric, popping mustard seeds, coriander…
We ate very well in Fort Kochi, as I mentioned previously, there were so many great places to eat. They were all so modern and clean that we didn't feel too worried about eating the meat, and it didn't seem to do us much harm. Of course there were plenty of great fish curries on offer too. Interestingly, we saw beef on a lot on the menus here - I had thought that as a predominantly Hindu nation and the sacredness of the cows that we wouldn't see beef for sale, but apparently they don't mind in Kerala! In the more local places we tended to eat vegetarian. The first place we went to like this only cost around 60p for an unlimited thali (curries, rice, pickles and poppadoms), where they come round and refill your plate constantly. Everyone eats in these places with their hands, more specifically their
right hand, as the left is used for wiping you know what. I gave it a go but it was far too messy and in the end gave up and just used some cutlery!
One evening we went to see a local Kathakali play. Arriving an hour before the start allowed us to watch the performers getting ready on stage. They apply all the makeup themselves. Sitting cross legged on stage they use a mirror to apply thick naturally coloured pastes to their faces. One of them put special seeds under his eyelids to make his eyeballs go red. They all wear elaborate costumes, and the idea is that they tell the story through facial expressions and certain movements and dances rather than with words. The most impressive were the performances of just eye movement. With their body completely still, the performer flicks their eyes around in the sockets at varying paces, quickening in time to the drums to a point where it is almost incomprehensible as to how they can be moving their eyes that quickly. It looked almost as if there was someone trapped inside a statue and looking out through its eye sockets, trying to escape.
We also spent some time looking around the Mattancherry and Jew Town areas (where I was immediately asked if I was Jewish because I have a big nose…). Something that has been nice about this year is that we are beginning to recognise certain styles of artwork, handicrafts and architectures from other places we have been to. In the Pardisi Synagogue we instantly recognised the Chinese floor tiles. Hammered copper pots that we have previously found in the south of Portugal were in a lot of the shops here (being a former Portuguese colony). And Portuguese tarts of course (although not as good as those in Lisbon of course).
Our next stop was a welcome retreat from the heat up in the mountains, to the tea plantations of Munnar. We jumped onto a local bus to take us there. These buses are quite amazing really - they are basically huge metal boxes on top of giant wheels and suspension systems, with cutouts to form the windows and provide the local style air conditioning (complete with lots of road dust). There is an ingenious bit of string hung along the length of the bus from the ceiling, attached to
a bell at the other end, used to communicate between the conductor and driver. When the bus reverses, the conductor tugs the string repeatedly, imitating the reversing sound you hear on lorries! These buses fly up and down the roads, and there must be an unwritten rule that they are the Kings and everyone must make way for them. The first time on a bus in India is an utterly terrifying experience. Overtaking on completely blind corners and a seemingly utter contempt for any other road users seems to be the name of the game. But once you've been on a few you sort of get the gist of how they muddle through to make it all work out. Having said that I met someone who told me not to look up the number of deaths on Indian roads until we left - it seems like an almost reasonable number until you realise that it is actually the daily toll (400 per day!), not the annual one. With this in mind it was a slightly terrifying journey up the steep, twisting mountain roads, through the jungle and eventually, as we approached Munnar, looking out over the acres and acres of
terraced tea fields toppling down the mountain slopes. It was quite breathtaking scenery.
We had splashed out (in Indian standards) and booked into an all inclusive 'wellness retreat'. Normally this is the kind of thing I would steer well clear of, but when in the home of vegetarianism and yoga you've got to give it a go. Set deep within the forest it felt very secluded. Sometimes the crickets were so loud you could barely hear yourself think. The resort makes all their food from what they grow in the gardens. We met some Jains there, who are vegetarians but also won't eat any root vegetables in case it kills any insects when the root is pulled up, and the hotel even catered for them easily. They put on lots of activities for us, such as bird watching walks in the early morning, tea tasting sessions, cooking classes, and hikes through their spice gardens and cardamom forest full of banyan trees to a local waterfall. I decided to join Amy one morning on the terrace overlooking the jungle to give the yoga a go too. The teacher was a proper yogi, talking us through the various moves and explaining
that yoga was never really intended for fitness, but instead to cleanse the mind and body. Being the incredibly inflexible man that I am, it was all quite painful for me and so my favourite bits were the poses where we just had to lie down and not move, which I realised I could do just fine by myself in bed, so decided to give it a miss the next day. The same guy also led a meditation session one evening, which involved quite a lot of 'omm'ing and chanting things like 'my head, neck and upper back are feeling relaxed, my head, neck and upper back are feeling completely relaxed' which was making me laugh more than meditate unfortunately. It was very peaceful though, especially as a lightning storm was going on all around us at the time.
We ventured out of the resort one day, hiring a guide to take us on a trek through the tea plantations and to the surrounding mountains. He led us on a beautiful hike through the plantations, where we met some of the local women who pick the leaves, who kindly offered to share their lunch with us, even though they
only make 380 rupees a day (a little over £4). They have to pick 27kg of leaves a day or else their salary is cut. Wild elephants regularly roam the area so we were really hoping to see some, but it was not to be. The views from the top of the mountain across the miles of plantations were beautiful. As we reached the top a sudden downpour caught us out and left us seeking shelter for a while under a rock. After it had finished we were lured into a false sense of security and set off back down again, only for an even more aggressive downpour to hit, with water pouring out of the sky like I've never seen it before. Once again we managed to find some shelter and wait it out, and when it eased an ethereal mist began to rise and flow around the mountains.
Our next stop was the backwaters of Alleppey, back down near the coast. The buses trying to navigate the hairpin bends coming down the mountains on a busy Saturday were an impressive feat. It is a very popular spot on the domestic tourist scene, and the roads are plied
with Mahindras - an Indian take on the classic Jeep - which are packed out with people in the back going on sightseeing trips. As we came down the mountain it got hotter and hotter and busier and busier on the bus until it was horribly unpleasant. We were aiming to get to Kottayam from where we could get a ferry down to Alleppey. But unfortunately for us when we arrived at the pier the river was covered in green weeds, and obviously no boat was coming up or down there. So we had to do another two hours in a tuk tuk all the way to Alleppey.
Alleppey is the hub for all things backwater, most prominently houseboats. These are based on the old rice barges, and with their weaved bamboo coverings certainly look the part. You can get any manner of boat, from something quite simple to one with hot tubs or jacuzzis. I knew they were popular but had totally underestimated just how popular they actually are. When they are coming back in to Alleppey in the morning, or heading out in the afternoon, there are huge traffic jams of boats, all lining up one after
another. It's a very popular thing for the domestic tourists to do, and the boats are usually full of people dancing about on the deck to loud music and cheering to each other when they go past another boat. It's quite a nice thing to watch, some good clean fun! But this wasn't for us. The backwaters are made up of some larger passages criss-crossed by much smaller ones which the big boats can't get down. Instead, we opted for a punted boat and guide, who could take us down the small creeks and into some of the local villages. We slowly made our way up the narrow creeks, seeing close up the villagers fishing and washing their clothes in the water, cleaning them thoroughly by slapping them onto large granite rocks on the sides. Although it was really nice to see some local village life, it did feel a bit intrusive. Especially seeing other tourists taking photos of people washing, it was a bit like a human zoo. I thought the locals were incredibly tolerant of it. There was another type of small boat that we could've taken with luxury chairs and I was quite glad we didn't take
one of those. Aside from that it was a very quiet and pleasant day on the backwaters. Palm trees lined the sides, with locals paddling their canoes under the pink blooms of bougainvillea. We stopped at a shack for lunch, where we had a great fish thali, eaten off a large banana leaf on the banks of the river. A walk through one of the villages also showed the extent of the damage from last year's flooding on these low-lying areas that are only accessible by boat.
We continued on to the southernmost point of our trip in Kerala, the beach town of Varkala. It was a bit of a nightmare journey, first of all trying to find the right bus to catch proved tricky, and when we did find it, it was a bit like a town city bus we would have at home, absolutely packed and with no seats for a 3 hour journey!
The main attraction of Varkala is the beach, and the cliff that stands above it full of restaurants, cafés and shops. As the season was ending a lot of the shacks were beginning to shut up shop, but there was still plenty
open for us to enjoy. We decided to stay here for five days of beach relaxation time. I'm sure the phrase 'only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun' was coined about Varkala, as the only people on the beach in the midday heat were Western tourists and packs of dogs roaming about the place - all the locals sensibly only come out in the evening when it cools down! We spent a lot of the time here chilling on the beach (no problems with sunbathing here which was nice), eating great curry, and watching the spectacular sunsets over the Indian Ocean from the top of the cliff. As the sun sets you begin to see the twinkling of hundreds of lights on the horizon from the fishermen heading out for the night. As a dry state, it is a bit trickier to find a beer in Kerala. A lot of places do serve beer and cocktails, but you need to ask to see their ‘special’ menus. Often the alcohol names will be abbreviated, like 'G. & tonic with elderflower'. The beers were sometimes served in mugs to disguise what they were hiding, or the bottles hidden
on the seat next to you. And the receipts would always describe the beer as 'pop'!
Varkala actually has a few surf spots, and as monsoon season was just around the corner I was hoping to score some decent waves. Unfortunately the swell was only small, but I paid a guide to take me out to some of the local spots. A couple of the days I got up super early to avoid the stronger midday onshore winds, and headed to the local fisherman's beach to surf a spot there. The waves were small but it was still fun, and pretty cool to surf with all the fishermen bringing in the night's haul and hanging around on the beach. I was initially a bit worried as I'd heard that the fishermen often poo in the water on these beaches and I didn't want to encounter lots of that whilst I was paddling round, but luckily I didn't see any!! There was a mosque right on the beach, and I was the only one surfing so it felt like a real local experience!
On another day we decided to go for one of the local massage specialities - an
ayuverdic massage. This is where they massage medicated buttermilk onto your body in ways to improve circulation, and for other health benefits I'm not 100%!c(MISSING)lear on. I've never been a huge fan of massages as I've always found them to be more punishing than therapeutic, but thought I'd give this a go. The room looked one step removed from a torture chamber, with a carved wooden bed in the centre with a hole in the middle where the head goes, presumably for the oil to drip out of. A brass pot hung over the table, and a gas hob was heating up another brass pot of oil in the corner. I was instructed to take my t-shirt off. Sure, no problem. 'Now your trousers'. OK. Then the masseur tied a loin cloth around my waist and told me to drop my pants, after which he tied the loincloth up. Never have I felt more awkward. He told me to lie on my back on the table, after which he poured the warm oil over my body and got to work massaging it in, working a bit too close to my nether regions for my liking. Unfortunately the ceiling was
slightly reflective so I could see the horror show reflected right back at me! After 45 minutes of this it finally came to an end - it was enough to put me off massages for life!!! And to make matters worse my skin had a terrible reaction to the oil! At least it wasn't just me, Amy found it a bit weird as well… Still an interesting experience we're not likely to forget.
We decided to head back into the mountains, to a region called Wayanad. This meant catching a long train to Calicut followed by another bus to take us up the mountain roads to Kalpetta. There was only room left in 2nd class, but at least we managed to get some seats. As the train rolled in there were people sitting on the roof and in between the carriages - something I’ve seen pictures of before but it was still quite shocking to see in real life. 2nd class was absolutely fine, other than that it wasn’t air conditioned. It was a particularly hot day, and by the end of the six hour journey I was completely overheating. To try and cool down we decided to try
and find a restaurant for lunch, but it just seemed to get hotter. We sat next to two sisters in the restaurant who happened to be going in the same direction as us, and they offered to help us find the right bus. They were really friendly and chatty, and even bought us cold drinks for the bus and wouldn’t accept repayment! By the end of the bus trip I was feeling totally drained and so we just went to bed early.
Everywhere else we had been had been well set up for tourists, with lots of trips and things to do easily organised by the hotels. The reason for us visiting Wayanad was to try and see the wild elephants (and maybe even a tiger) in one of the national parks - but there were no obvious trips set up for it, possibly because all the attractions in Wayanad are quite far apart. In the end we decided to hire a driver for the day to take us to all the main sights. We set off early for the Muthanga Park to go on a jeep safari. We joined the general scramble to get tickets (as they only
allow a certain number every morning), and eventually managed to get some, sharing a jeep with a family from Chennai. We drove along a track through the dense forest on the lookout for any kind of movement. To be honest it was all a bit of a scam - jeep after jeep drove in convoy down the set track, the drivers hardly looking out for anything as we went. Despite the driver telling us he had seen a tiger earlier that morning (definitely a lie…), all we saw were deer and a peacock! In fact we ended up seeing more outside the park than inside - by the ranger’s station there were monkeys and giant Malabar squirrels. Our driver took us on a whirlwind tour of the region for the rest of the day, visiting spice and flower gardens, museums, Jain temples, waterfalls, viewpoints, and the Edakkal caves. These caves are situated high up a mountain, and contain some 8000 year old petroglyphs, which were really quite impressive.
We caught another bus back down the winding mountain roads to our final stop in Kerala, Kannur. The main reason we had decided to come here was to see a
theyyam ritual. These are performed in Hindu temples only in the Malabar region, and only between November and May. It is a ritual performed as a channel to their god, and is quite a spectacle. We had arrived a day earlier than planned, which happened to coincide with a particularly elaborate
theyyam happening nearby, and one of the last ones of the year. We took a tuk tuk at 3.30am, arriving in the dark at a small temple with a crowd of people outside. I was initially worried about turning up to a local ritual as a tourist, but I had been assured by the host of our homestay that we would be welcome there. We crept into the back, feeling like imposters, but were immediately spotted by the hosts of the
theyyam, who quickly came over and offered us food and chai, and explained what was going on to us. By the time we left we were pretty much friends with half the people there - they were so welcoming to us! It started off with drumming and singing, and the appearance of Guligan, the incarnation of Lord Shiva. At first he was running around, twirling and spinning his long
grassleaf skirt in the fire, sending embers flying. His face was painted white and he had long flowing black hair, and was trying to encourage Shiva to enter his body. The women all wore their hair up so as not to confuse Shiva. Whenever he came near, everyone stood up as a sign of respect. When Shiva finally arrived, a 15 foot tall headdress was put on, and he walked around on stilts. The vivid colours, fire, movement and intensity was magical. Especially with it being in the middle of the night. The occasional explosion of a firecracker made us jump several times. This went on for an hour or two, until eventually he was exhausted and sat down to recover. The locals said that he had been in a trance and would not remember anything afterwards.
Next up were two Sasthappan
theyyams. Their costumes were incredible - they had huge red plumages on their backs and what looked like a table surrounding their bodies, with intricate makeup and carrying fire torches. There was a lot of drumming, dancing and chanting, and people came to them for blessings. The host came over at one point with honey on his
hand, offering it to us to lick off, and then telling us we should go up for our own blessing. We went up to the Sasthappan tentatively and were given a dollop of honey on our hands.
The final
theyyam was Pottan. Another manifestation of Shiva, his face was painted an angry red and white, and had a long grass skirt and grass headdress. There was a lot of angry dancing where he ran at the crowd, who threw rice at him. After a long while, a chicken was produced and sacrificed. The locals were questioning our slight surprise when the chicken was still flapping around headless after a couple of minutes, as obviously the sight of killing a chicken is quite normal for them. I explained that our chickens usually come in packets, which they seemed just as surprised about! A large fire had been burning all night, and the large flaming logs began to be cleared, leaving only the red hot embers. People began to run across them, and at one point a man lost control of his body and was carried off shaking. ‘That is the power of God’, someone whispered to me. This all culminated
in Pottan lying on the embers of the fire on his back, with only the grass headdress to protect him. He sat with his arms crossed and one leg balanced on the other, in a pose more suited to relaxing on the beach than lying on a fire. The crowd would try to encourage him to get up, trying to pull his arms, but he brandished his knife and shooed them away. This went on for over 5 minutes, and by this point it was 9am and we were so tired we decided to head home. He was still on the fire when we drove back past on our way out!
This was one of the highlights of the entire trip for me. To come across local rituals that aren’t put on as shows for tourists are few and far between these days. As the world modernises and becomes more global, authentic experiences like this are an increasing rarity, and we felt very privileged to have witnessed it, and to have been welcomed in the way that we were. Our ears with ringing with the sound of the high pitched
chenda drums and cymbals for the rest of the
day.
Kannur also happens to be on the coast, lined with almost deserted tropical beaches. Our homestay was right on the cliff, with its own (almost) private beach. We spent most of the rest of the day relaxing on the beach, and exploring the other nearby beaches. Some had coarse golden sand and others white sand and palm trees. It is a particularly beautiful place and I’m amazed there’s not more set up for tourists here! Our hosts were amazing, providing us home cooked meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day underneath the palm trees. In the four days we were there I think they gave us over 30 curries - all different and all delicious.
The next day we organised a tour of Kannur with a local driver. He took us out to a textiles factory nearby, which was fascinating. A slightly ramshackle building was full of old wooden looms, all operated by hand and with no electricity, filled with the rattling sound of the bobbins shuttling back and forth. The men and women there were really friendly, and more than happy to stop and tell us about their jobs. They were making beautiful things -
saris, bedsheets, towels - and all had different methods. I had never really thought about how much work goes into making these things before, and it certainly made me think about their value and how much we sometimes unreasonably expect to pay for them.
He also took us to a
theyyam museum (which I am now obsessed by - there are over 400
theyyams performed in the region every year, all different with some more elaborate than others - I would love to see more of them), the local lighthouse and fort, and to yet another amazing banana leaf thali lunch with prawns and kingfish. We had come to Kannur just for the
theyyam but there was so much more to see.
We had decided to fly from Kannur to Goa - a new airport had just been built and would save us a day of travelling, for only £25 each! We were headed to the backpacker beach of Palolem for the final week of our trip, to spend our last few days relaxing on a beach before heading back to reality. Kannur airport has been built right in the middle of the jungle on top of a
hill - it’s really weird driving through villages in the jungle for miles before turning a corner to find a brand new airport in the middle of it all! We arrived in Palolem right at the end of the season. There is a ban on concrete along the beach, and most of the restaurants, bars and homestays along the beach are just wooden shacks. As these would get wrecked in the monsoon, they take them down every year, and we arrived just as they were beginning to do that. But it didn’t matter, as most of the main places were still open, and there were plenty of people still around to keep the remaining bars and restaurants busy. By all accounts it can be unpleasantly busy in the high season, so I think we were there at a good time!
Palolem Beach is the quintessential paradise beach, a long curving bay with white sand and lined with palm trees. It’s a beautiful place to spend a few days. We spent our time drinking beers and cocktails on the beach, and having candlelit fish curries on the sand. We had some of the best curries yet here, the highlight being
a crab and prawn makhani which was just out of this world. The nearby beaches of Patnem and Agonda were even more deserted and quiet, except for the huge numbers of stray beach dogs, which roam around like a scene out of Isle of Dogs. Sometimes the dogs would fight the cows that also walk around on the beach! Weirdly we didn’t see any cows on the roads or on the beaches in Kerala, but loads in Goa (they would roam from bin to bin, knocking them over to get at any food).
We didn’t do much else other than relax - the only other tour we did was a boat trip up the river through the mangroves to see the fish eagles feeding (on bits of chicken thrown out the boat…), it was cool to see them swooping down and grabbing the food from right in front of you.
Before we knew it, it was time to fly home. Kerala and Goa had been the perfect end to our trip. Kerala really does have it all - mountains, beaches, rivers, wildlife, culture, and amazing food. The people we met were so incredibly friendly and hospitable everywhere we
went - just looking and smiling at someone would result in them absolutely beaming back at you. It’s a wonderful place.
I was obviously looking forward to seeing friends and family again, but was feeling sad that the trip we had been planning for years was drawing to an end. I’d be lying if I said that the trip had gone perfectly, and everything had worked out exactly as we had planned. There were some difficult times where we weren’t enjoying ourselves as much as we thought we would, but I think we learnt a lot about ourselves from these experiences. But overridingly the trip was incredible. We were lucky enough to have the time to travel to some of the more challenging destinations, seeing some of the world’s most beautiful places and meeting people from all walks of life, learning about their homes and their culture. That feeling of surprise when somewhere is nothing like you expected never gets old, and is what I love most about travelling.
So that’s it for the next little while! Thanks for reading - I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our trip and I haven’t blabbered on too much! Until next
time...
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Rituals
Nice photo.