Anyone who travels to India simply has to get a
Mr Baby.
He was our unruffled,
courteous, careful and immaculately dressed driver and the only person on our
eight-day tour in ‘God’s Own Country’ to be consistently punctual.
There is time, and then there is Indian Standard
Time. All over the world Indians admit there is an unwritten code to never be
on time and in Kerala, to never stick rigidly to any given plan. However this
intrigue, this uncertainty, contributed towards making our tour in
Kerala so fascinating.
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| Paddy fields |
Credit must go to our tour organisers Tern Trips, not your regular travel agents but rather off-beat travel-planners with second-to-none insider knowledge about their home state. They are off-the radar (an Internet search will reveal nothing). I found them via a personal recommendation.
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| Hubre in a tuk tuk |
As a first-timer to India I had a rough
outline of the type of experience desired (not excessive driving, nature-based,
budget but not too budget, etc) and Tern Trips planned the rest. It was not
without hiccups of course, but we experienced a very varied taste of Kerala with a perfect concoction of activities, sights and destinations.
Departure Dubai
So on 12 November Janee and I met Hubre (who
flew in that day from South Africa) at Dubai International Airport’s gate to
Cochin (now Kochi). Emirates delivered us to the modern, squeaky-clean Cochin International
Airport on India’s south west coast 3½ hours later. This was the first of many surprises.
Despite all the research I still imagined my arrival in India would be similar
to the chaotic scenes in City of Joy, Lion, Best Exotic Marigold
Hotel and Slumdog Millionaire.
[Another
preconceived idea quashed was that snakes would fall out of cupboards when you
opened them; some snakes had indeed been displaced by the recent devastating floods and had found refuge in dark places in private homes. The only
serpents I saw were plastic.] |
| Brunton Boatyard from the ferry |
Mr Baby from Intersight Tours & Travels waited with a placard bearing my name and soon enough we were in a Toyota Innova Crysta bowling through the port city studded with colonial architecture - Portuguese palaces, Dutch mansions, British warehouses; past huge shipping structures via the Goshree Road to Vypin and on to the ferry to Fort Kochi.
Mr Baby (he had a much finer name of Abraham Ochelekal but
the nickname is so much more memorable) bought Janee some herbal oil for her
knee as she was limping. She twisted it while sitting cross-legged in an
economy seat, not something I would ever attempt…
On the 20 minute ferry journey we saw where the seawater from the Arabian Sea met the freshwater of the Vembanad Lake.
On the 20 minute ferry journey we saw where the seawater from the Arabian Sea met the freshwater of the Vembanad Lake.
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| The Ambassador & I |
Thomas Tharian, deferential proprietor of homestay Fort
Garden Residency, offered basic clean and comfy accommodation, drinking water
and good advice about Cochin such as where to eat (another preconception was to contract a ghastly Delhi belly the moment we ate anything. Note: we didn't get sick once).
Hotel Seagull's casual restaurant with its view over the harbour was such a place, presenting superb seafood and a memorable thick spicy vegetable soup.
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| Steam boilers |
Willingdon
On the promenade by a litter-festooned beach there were two rather curious tourist attractions that had a connection to my sister in Willingdon, East Sussex. The plaque read: “Steam boilers of the cranes used in Cochin dry dock for 20 years from 1956. It used coke, coal, and firewood as fuels. Notable use of these cranes included attending annual repairs of dredger Lord Willingdon and Lady Willingdon”.
On the promenade by a litter-festooned beach there were two rather curious tourist attractions that had a connection to my sister in Willingdon, East Sussex. The plaque read: “Steam boilers of the cranes used in Cochin dry dock for 20 years from 1956. It used coke, coal, and firewood as fuels. Notable use of these cranes included attending annual repairs of dredger Lord Willingdon and Lady Willingdon”.
I
discovered later that Lord Willingdon (once plain Mr Freeman-Thomas) was
India’s 22nd Viceroy and Governor-General from 1931 to 1936; the large dredger
named after him was built by a Scottish company; and his family once owned
Ratton Manor and Estate in the Willingdon region near Eastbourne.
The Lady
Willingdon was a small bucket dredger that helped in the building of the port.
The real live Lady Willingdon was Marie Adelaide Freeman-Thomas (née Brassey).
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| Chinese fishing nets |
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| Kingfisher time |
Of less significance to me were the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets, a feature of Cochin that I had yearned to see. These nets supported on huge arced frames and operated by levers and counterweights were not as special as I had imagined. Perhaps it would have been better to have seen them in action at sunset but by then we were quaffing a few Kingfisher beers.
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| Chendamangalam Synagogue's ceiling |
The synagogue
Next day Mr Baby propelled us to Kodungallur where we peeked at the Cheraman Juma Masjid (mosque), passed Paliyam Palace (closed for renovation) and stopped at the Muziris Heritage Project, although I am now doubting where we actually were as the Internet descriptions and photos of the place we went to aren't remotely similar. We saw some ruins, plastic sheeting, saw ant-lion craters in the dirt; spoke to a woman who told us about the legendary port of Muziris and the Portuguese in the late 1500s but there was nothing too inspiring to report here.
Chendamangalam Synagogue further on was more
interesting particularly for Jewish Hubre. The synagogue has a brightly coloured chequered pattern with
flowers in relief on its high ceiling. A spiral wooden staircase leads to a balcony with beautifully carved balusters and railings, and
behind that is the women’s partition.
Next day Mr Baby propelled us to Kodungallur where we peeked at the Cheraman Juma Masjid (mosque), passed Paliyam Palace (closed for renovation) and stopped at the Muziris Heritage Project, although I am now doubting where we actually were as the Internet descriptions and photos of the place we went to aren't remotely similar. We saw some ruins, plastic sheeting, saw ant-lion craters in the dirt; spoke to a woman who told us about the legendary port of Muziris and the Portuguese in the late 1500s but there was nothing too inspiring to report here.
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| Ant-lion homes |
It was surprising to hear how few Jews are left in Cochin
(26 at last count according to an article in Haaretz) since they arrived in the
region around the 12th Century; most seemed to have headed off to Israel after
1948.
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| Cheeyappara Waterfalls |
By afternoon we were weaving towards Munnar in the
Western Ghats some 1,600m upwards, winding through towns, rubber plantations, lush forests, past some chained up buffaloes (an abbatoir), elaborate houses
belonging to Middle East-based Indians, shacks belonging to local Keralites,
spice plantations and more. We stopped at Cheeyappara Waterfalls that flow down
in seven tiers apparently. Most other tourists en route to Munnar stop here
too.
The road twists and climbs, narrows alarmingly in
some places “…where everything looks like an accident about to happen,” said
Hubre. There were signs of the damage caused by the terrific floods that
affected Kerala in August 2018; fallen trees and branches, churned up roads and
gouged out hillslopes revealing raw earth.
Not too sure why Chandy’s Windy
Woods was the hotel chosen for us (Chandy or chandi means ass i.e. bum in Malayalam) but
who cares, it was magnificent and a destination in itself. Their chenda mellam welcoming committee of bare-chested drummers was Wow! -
incredibly loud and vibrant in the cool night air. This hotel was another
magnificent surprise for we were expecting something far more modest. The higgledy-piggledy design of the hotel held, in
a central atrium over two or three floor levels, an enormous artificial Banyan
tree (ficus benghalensis) dripping with aerial roots and tendrils. Perhaps there are restrictions to
growing a real one for it is a holy tree for many religions and also the
National tree of India. |
| A view to wake up to |
Dawn brought a spectacular view from our balcony – lush greenery, artistically contoured tea plantations, flowering plants, spread out below as we breathed in the fresh air and listened to gentle bird song as the hills slowly awakened. Perennially cool, Munnar was a favoured summer resort for one-time British government officials who also relished the serenity - acre upon acre of tea, coffee, cardamon, pepper, clove, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg and more.
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| CSI Christ Church, Munnar |
Confusion reigned this day for between us 3, our travel planners and Mr Baby plans for the day were lost in translation. There was just an unfathomable disconnect, none of us were in synch!
We drove
past a huge billboard indicating UN World Toilet Day was imminent, in fact on
19th November. The day is marked to encourage all to take action to ensure that
everyone has a safe toilet by 2030. It was an apt reminder to ask our travel
planners how to politely ask Mr Baby to “stop the car I need a pee like NOW”.
And it is easy enough – just hold up the pinky and wiggle it. A universal sign
apparently.
After some
time we finally met our travel gurus Srijith Sridharan, Aswathi Gopinath (Achu)
and her cousin Appu (Rajasekhar Vishnu Das). They had driven by car from Cochin to
meet us, which had taken longer than anticipated. Or had left late. Or hadn’t
actually left from there but from another destination, we never really
understood. But whatever, we were here together in the Western Ghats, a
biodiversity hot-spot that contains loads of the country's plant
and animal species.
The scenery is something else. Trees heavy with blossom including spathodea, cassia and pointsettia, plus jacaranda trees, were all so familiar to me that it was like coming home to Africa. Angel’s trumpet (a bell-shaped flower), morning glory, orchid, fuschia, bougainvillea, rose and jasmine clung to the roadsides for dear life as we rumbled by. Dotted randomly among the tea plantations covering the hillslopes were silver birch trees, grown to protect the young tea plants as well as to absorb excess water.
The scenery is something else. Trees heavy with blossom including spathodea, cassia and pointsettia, plus jacaranda trees, were all so familiar to me that it was like coming home to Africa. Angel’s trumpet (a bell-shaped flower), morning glory, orchid, fuschia, bougainvillea, rose and jasmine clung to the roadsides for dear life as we rumbled by. Dotted randomly among the tea plantations covering the hillslopes were silver birch trees, grown to protect the young tea plants as well as to absorb excess water.
About 15 kilometres from Munnar is the Eravikulam National Park of shola forests where prime attractions are the Nilgiri Tahr, an endangered species of mountain goat, and Neelakurunji (Strobilanthes kunthianus) a blue coloured shrub that blooms every 12 years - and 2018 was its year to bloom. We were lucky enough to find a few still visible on the plants.
The park was jam-packed with large buses, cars and
locals. We all piled into the feeder bus that takes you up the mountain to a
certain point from which there’s a comfortable walk to the top for the view of
a mosaic of green hues from shrubs, stunted evergreen trees, moss and
grassland.
Half-way to the top were the country’s first automated e-toilets, a scheme from Eram Scientific of Thiruvananthapuram, a company that aims to solve the issue of India’s many unhygienic public loos. The occupant is guided by audio commands, it flushes automatically and the next user doesn’t get access until it is clean.
Half-way to the top were the country’s first automated e-toilets, a scheme from Eram Scientific of Thiruvananthapuram, a company that aims to solve the issue of India’s many unhygienic public loos. The occupant is guided by audio commands, it flushes automatically and the next user doesn’t get access until it is clean.
Tea museum
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| Tata Tea Museum |
The onward journey to a remote village somewhere produced some stunning vistas of shiny-leaved tea plantations, shimmering Mattupatti Dam and near Kundala Lake we spotted four wild elephants in the distance. Just beyond the Nature Education Centre (yet another pee stop negotiated for us by Mr Baby) in the Papadum Shola National Park we drove around a sharp bend and suddenly came upon three enormous bisons with horns - so close we couldn’t even get a photo.
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| Mattupatti Dam |
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| Zoom in for elephants! |
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| Kottakamboor village |
Us six and our large suitcases crammed into and onto a 4x4 jeep and we clung onto anything in the back as it buckled and bounced for two kilometres over very rough rocky terrain. By now it was twilight so I really did wonder what on earth we were doing, totally clueless as to where we would end up. Plus our safety blanket Mr Baby stayed behind in the village.
Worry I need not have, for the occupants of a
charmingly rustic wattle and daub house B’Leaf Inn, sitting upon a hillslope, welcomed us with open arms. Proprietors Shah and
Razook show guests exactly what it is like to live in this peaceful, remote
part of the world. Multi-coloured vegetable fields of fennel, strawberries,
cabbages, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, fruit of every description, sit on
terraced slopes and valleys; patches of forests hold eucalyptus and conifers.
Chef and owner of the land is Murthi, who uses as
much of the ingredients grown on site as is possible while creating local
dishes such as dinner that night, naadan
chicken curry with coconut milk, chillis and spices, served with chapattis and salad.
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| B'Leaf Inn |
After some tulsi
tea (Ocimum tenuiflorum, commonly known as holy basil, which has therapeutic
properties) it was time for bed. There are three en suite double bedrooms each with a shower and a western
loo, a jute carpet, woollen blanket and pillows. We didn’t know to bring our
own sheets or sleeping bags but I did bring the loo paper. Because it was so
cold we slept wearing all of our clothing, and the three of us spent it in one double
bed (there had been a hiccup with the booking system). I had a surprisingly
good sleep (don’t know about the others!)
Morning walk
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| Chef & owner Murthi |
In the morning it was chilly as we strolled to a waterfall, passed a dam and through forests. We met a local farmer cultivating cauliflowers, garlic, potatoes, carrots and beans. Via Achu’s interpretation we heard that he inherited the land from his parents who had died young. He came from the bordering state of Tamil Nadu. He said that from time to time wild elephants, tigers and wolves passed through right where we were walking. Once he came across a pack of wolves near the road, so all the villagers came with fire torches to scare the wolves away.
Breakfast at B’Leaf Inn
was an amazing creation of puttu, steamed rice flour layered in coconut and pushed into a long cylindrical stainless steel vessel. Accompanying this was spicy kadala curry with black chickpeas, plus there was a fresh fruit salad, all laid out on the main verandah.
Walking back the two kilometres to the village we
met stunningly beautiful neat and well-groomed young women carrying goods on
their heads on their way to the fields. To witness daily uncomplicated life was
such a privilege. Hubre popped into the local school and they welcomed us all with great beaming smiles.
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| Hubre meets the school children |
Kumarakom
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| Coconut Creek homestay |
Halfway there we stopped at a roadside restaurant for masala dosa (long very thin and fat crispy rice pancakes with fillings of potato, mustard seeds, onion, ginger, garlic etc served with chutney and a lentil-based vegetable stew).
We also stopped at a supermarket to find tonic and lime…..
The roads were busy but moving, mostly single lane
traffic. We passed mosques and temples and hundreds of churches, some crammed to
overflowing with worshippers.
It was a joy to reach Coconut Creek homestay just before nightfall, where host Ullas Babu (or his representative, not too sure
who was who) greeted all. Communication wasn’t great but we gathered
we were welcome to have a complementary vegetarian curry dinner with chapattis that night – perfect, after
some pre-dinner gins and tonics. Here we each had an en suite private room,
where a quiet fan lulled us to sleep and shooed away the mosquitoes.
The backwaters
From across a canal at the end of the homestay the
soft melodious peal of church bells woke me around 0600, a comforting sound I
had not heard since I lived in Ardingly, West Sussex some 16 years ago. Gentle
warm rain pattered down as we sat for breakfast of omelette, rice pancakes in coconut milk, toast and jam.
In the dripping rain we took a Village Life
Experience operated by Kerala Responsible Tourism, which embraces community-based tourism. Guide Sabu, previously of the Indian army, loaned us hat umbrellas that grip
onto the head as we boarded a rickety traditional canoe and slipped into the canal
water. Parting the clumps of invasive but pretty pinky-purple flowered water
hyacinth (Kariba weed) we felt more in tune with nature on our rocky
canoe than I’m sure those in the motorised boats that occasionally puttered by
did.
White-throated and common kingfisher, Indian pond heron, black ibis, palm swift, brown kite, whiskered tern, Indian roller, blue tailed bee-eater, cormorant, black drongo,you name it, Sabu knew it so Hubre didn’t have to haul out the Indian bird book she bought in Cochin.
As Sabu slowly paddled everyday village life unfolded on the banks– it’s where everyone scrubs themselves, swims, where women wash pots and men fish.
On dry land, a woman holds a clump of coconut fibre that has been soaked for six months in water then extracted from the shell. She makes coir rope using a basic but brilliant mechanism tied up to a tree; motorised hooks twist the tufted coconut fibre pulled from inside a coconut into long threads. An agile farmer scampered up a coconut tree to extract toddy from the leaf. We certainly didn’t scamper, but tried to climb a coconut tree using a device that felt like cumbersome leg callipers; we watched a woman make mats by weaving coconut leaves together; and saw how to make foamy hair
Hubre lost count of the number of single shoes she
had seen abandoned in just about every place visited. Was it due to the floods? Are
shoes cheap in India? Nobody had an answer.
Three hours later we were at Alleppey (Alappuzha) on the
top deck of a houseboat, looking across the famous backwaters of
Vembanad Lake and wondering what on earth had hit us.
Gokul Cruise’s luxurious floating palace had a
four-poster bed, jacuzzi in the bathroom, upper deck with sun loungers and
sofas and three unobtrusive staff dedicated to just ourselves. Manager Muthus
(also a bird expert) ran a tight ship, while captain Sanish steered and Justin
cooked delicious traditional food like sadhya -
various vegetarian dishes served on a banana
leaf.
“I do not envy anyone today, except me,” said
Janee.
Good to learn that waste matter is not discharged into the lake but
stored in bio-tanks on the boat where it is treated and then
emptied once back
on shore. There’s surprisingly little litter considering the number of
houseboats and rice barges that come here.
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| Sadya |
Back to Alleppey
Dawn was a rosy sky dotted with black ibis flying above the
coconut palm-fringed shore. The rain had gone. Bird chirrups and faint singing
from one of the pink Catholic churches way off in the distance wafted across
the water. Slowly our houseboat sailed back to Alleppey, past islands peppered
with coconut trees and little houses behind which green paddy
fields stretched out, past serene women washing clothes, past feeder canoes anxious to give us a ride. We were sad to say goodbye to the backwaters.
Mr Baby drove us to a Hindu temple where we felt as if we
were intruders so didn’t linger long.
Another temple stop was the Mannarasala Sree Nagaraja Temple, a shrine dedicated to the Serpent God Nagaraja. Devotees believe the serpents have miraculous powers.
Another temple stop was the Mannarasala Sree Nagaraja Temple, a shrine dedicated to the Serpent God Nagaraja. Devotees believe the serpents have miraculous powers.
We then had a lovely
chat and lunch at the very comfortable home of Srijith’s mother, who later took
us on a short walk to her favourite place, the Mararikulam Sree Mahadeva
Temple.
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| Xandari Pearl swimming pool area |
Then on to the beach to a spacious, secluded white bungalow at the Xandari Pearl resort in Mararikulam. It had a small garden, hammock under a coconut tree (with nets atop to catch falling fruit) and an outside bathroom. How magical it was to be looking at the moon and being totally surrounded by nature when taking a shower. Simply gorgeous!
Our bungalow was five minutes’ walk from the sea with strong waves that pounded onto the shore.
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| Shower open to the elements |
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| Reception |
In the morning from the open bathroom, choral singing wafted over the bungalow’s wall from three different directions. It was Sunday after all.
We returned to Cochin, passing paddy fields, colourful boats, more churches, tree-lined roads then checked into our hotel opposite Cochin harbour.
Colonial charm
It’s like entering
a history book when you get to the Brunton Boatyard with its lofty ceiling, punkhas and elegant teak furniture
in the reception area reminiscent of the days of the Raj. Re-built about 10 years ago from the remnants
of a 19th century shipbuilding
yard when the pepper trade was at its peak, the hotel retains its
colonial charm while offering modern facilities. English,
Portuguese and Dutch influences are reflected in the hotel’s décor and
architecture, including huge
portraits of dominant figures in Cochin’s history adorning the walls.
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| Sanjeev K.R. & son |
Local guide Sanjeev K.R. with his young son took us on a tour of Cochin, once an important trading post with its commanding position at the mouth of the Periyar River.
Starting at the market in Jew Town, we visited 16th-century Paradesi Synagogue, a small Kappiri Muthappan shrine dedicated to African slaves brought in by the Portuguese, then St. Francis Church where Vasco da Gama was first buried (his remains are in Lisbon now) and which has particularly long punkahs cooling the congregation in the pews.
Rain trees (Mimosaceae family) with their umbrella-like canopy of evergreen, feathery foliage and puffs of pink flowers, trunks festooned with ferns and moss, kept the avenues relatively shady.
It was hard to leave
the Brunton Boatyard’s elegant bedroom with a fabulous view of the port but
leave we had to, and early the next morning, complete with breakfast of fruit and
chicken sandwiches all neatly packaged in recycled bags made of newspaper,
we left ‘God’s Own Country’ for the airport.
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| Our room with a view |
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| Recycled breakfast bag |
