Kerala Diary 2012
 
 

Day One.

We decided to fly with Emirates from Birmingham to Dubai, then on to Kochi. The airline is pretty good, with decent food, service and entertainment. At 8.30 AM, we landed at Kochi airport feeling like shite. The immigration/passport control is very slow and inefficient, and suffers from a lack of air-con. An hour later, we decided to take the air-con bus to the terminus at Fort Kochi. The bus stop is just across the road as you exit the building to the right. The ticket was 70 rupees each. The journey was fairly unremarkable, passing through Ernakulam, which is just your generic grimy city. We met our first friendly Indian on the bus, who kindly offered to help us find our homestay. We hopped on a rickshaw, and in 3 minutes we had arrived. I had no small stuff to give the driver, so bunged him 50 rupees. He was a little startled, so I knew I’d overpaid!
Our homestay was near to Dronacharya Naval Base, and was pleasant and reasonably priced. We hopped into another rickshaw to get some supplies from a pharmacy, which was just a shack, with all dusty faded products behind glass. First impressions while whizzing around Fort Kochi were, 1, there are a heck of a lot of goats knocking around eating trash out of burning rubbish heaps, 2, There are a lot of road works and building going on, 3, the whole place has at least 1 church and school on every street. When walking, we got propositioned by rickshaws roughly every 5 minutes.

 
   
 

Day Two,

We were offered a rickshaw by our landlady, as he’d just delivered her something. We used Rafi all that day, being carted around the town, between landmarks, places of interest, and of course, the shops. All the establishments were Muslim, and were probably his brothers and cousins etc. We bought our share of tourist tat. The best of which, were spices and fragrances. We chose Lotus flower oil for her, and Sandalwood for him. We’ve definitely got to get more of this before we leave. Matancherry palace is quite interesting. It was Just a couple of rupees for the entry ticket. Unfortunately, they don’t allow photography or filming. Some of the wall frescos were really unusual, and had some fruity action going on! The Laundry is interesting, too. It is bustling with people thwacking clothes on to big stones, scrubbing, wringing and rinsing by hand. Then there is a shed full of people ironing with old-fashioned 3KG irons, full of coconut shell ashes.

 
   
 

Day Three,

In between squeezing in working on my laptop, we go to Vypeen Island to check out Cherai Beach, and maybe find a nice hotel. The rickshaw ride was 40 minutes, and 300 rupees. Apart from a few ‘nice on the outside, grim on the inside’ hotels, and a few ice cream stands and drinks shacks, there was nothing there. We decided to come back on the ferry, (5 rupees). Our friend Rafi the rickshaw driver helped us to find a decent homestay. After about 45 minutes, and viewing 5 ropey rooms, we told him we’d look ourselves. We chanced upon a very nice homestay on princess street. 2,000 rupees a night, with a pretty garden, nicely furnished room, brand new air-con, and a decent breakfast thrown in. There was tea/coffee, fruit, toast and as many eggs as you need. The hotel was named Walton’s, and run by a very decent chap called Christopher.

 
   
 

Day Four,

I spent most of the day finishing my work on the laptop, in the cool environment of my hotel room. The highlight of the day was going to lunch and dinner at Chariot Restaurant on Princess Street. We ate there every day, simply because we never got sick. It was a happy coincidence, because the food was good, and we tried a new dish every day.

 
 

Day Five,

We had a bit of a run-around trying to find decent ATM machines that would either accept my bank card, or not suffer from being crap. Several just didn’t even register the card. We did some more sight-seeing. The Old Portuguese fort was just the remains of a few wall foundations, with a gallery above holding loads of catholic relics. We visited the Jain temple, but just missed visiting time, from 11.00 ‘til 12 (for non-Hindus). In the evening we decided to catch a Kathakali show.
We arrived an hour early to watch them applying their make-up. The main show was perhaps one of the most bizarre experiences of the whole trip. A guy comes on the stage and explains the intricate facial expressions, and complicated hand gestures, which puts British Sign Language to shame. The show then starts, which is basically half an hour of rhythmic drumming, which is incessantly loud and repetitive. We sat ourselves in the gallery above the ground floor, and were able to watch the faces of the audience below. Some people held their ears, while some had peculiar expressions rather like Munch’s painting, ‘the scream’. Most people looked as if they were witnessing a car crash. The dancing isn’t even animated or energetic. The story’s premise is basically this, some guy in a big dress with a green face, and the family china perched on his head, is being chatted up by another guy (in drag) who is rolling his eyes coyly at him. The guy with the dinner plate hat then furiously waggles his eyebrows, and cocks his head to the side, while giving various Vulcan hand gestures. This show is one and a half hours long, and, if you look at the folks in the audience wearing flip-flops, you can see their toenails curling. We left 15 minutes early, with the missus remarking that that was a ‘WTF’ moment.

 
   
 

Day Six,

We take a trip to a tribal village, with a night in a waterside lodge, then a day and a night on a houseboat. First impressions are that the place is quite Spartan. There are many gaps in the windows and roof for ‘yer friendly neighbourhood Mr Mozzie to come in. Of course, the little bungalows/lodges are only about 5-6 metres from the water’s edge, so convenient for them! The bathroom situation is quite bizarre. There is covering just over the toilet, but the rest of the room is open-air. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken a dump while watching the moon through the mango trees. In the morning, our Danish neighbours complain that they’d been watched whilst on the crapper, by a couple of guys up the trees picking Mangoes. It’ll be on YouTube next week, heh heh!
We take a one hour canoe ride which takes in the paddy fields/tiger prawn farms. We pass loads of tumbledown shacks that are people’s houses. Women wash their clothes in the river, kids run alongside the boat asking for ‘one pen, please!’ Every house has chickens and ducks, and a trash heap that spills over into the river. Some of the smells from the prawn processing factories that we pass are quite powerful. As the sun sets, we watch a steady stream of fishermen in their canoes, return from their days work. All of them are very friendly, and reply with a ‘hello!’ The lagoon that our bungalow looks out on is in between Alleppey and Kochi, so it’s quite unknown, and we don’t ever see another tourist boat. We take a walk through the village, and come upon a boy’s cricket match. We are soon pressed into service. It’s incredible just how talented even the small kids are at cricket.

 
 

 
 

Day Seven,

The next day we set out on our Houseboat, which has a sun lounge at the front, a bedroom in the middle with a bathroom, then the kitchen for the staff at the back. Our staff on the Houseboat was 3 friendly guys. The cook speaks very good English, but both punters speak only a few words. We leave our lagoon, and set off through some waterways, onto another vast lagoon. We are asked whether we would like to moor in the middle of the lake and have lunch, or go over to the shore, walk through a village to get to the open sea and watch the fishermen bring their catch in. We decided to see the fishermen. As we come in to land, there are a group of kids waiting to ask for ‘one pen, please!’ We encounter more, and feel disappointed that we can’t give them a simple pen. Soon we arrive at the beach, which is a hive of activity. 20-30 boats are sitting on the sand, with new boats coming in all the time. Their catch is mainly sardines, prawns, crabs, jellyfish and the occasional sea snake (which is quickly despatched). There are spread nets with sardines drying out which are used for powder as a chemical. The pong is fairly strong.
On the way back through the village, we stop at a small shop and buy a big bag of candies/toffees. Every child we meet, we ask them to dig in and take a big handful. Within minutes we have even aunties/mums/dads/grannies digging in. The sweets were really popular. We take photos of a gang of kids, and they give us their address, so we can send them a photo. The rest of the day, we spend moored in the middle of the lagoon, and enjoy a nice lunch, while watching various birds and passing fishermen. A highlight is seeing plenty of really big brown kites, which look to us no different to an eagle. At night, we witness the local women fishing. Basically, they swim up to their necks along the shore of the lagoon, with a couple of buckets. It’s a bizarre sight.

 
   
 

Day Eight,

The following day we take a taxi back to Fort Kochi, and just mooch around the place. We book a trip to Munnar for the following day. That evening there is a terrific rainstorm with thunder and lightning. The water in the streets gets to around 4 inches deep, and Rickshaws and tourists scramble around.

 
 

Day Nine,

The trip to Munnar is quite a long one. Maybe 4-5 hours on a straight run. It seems quite hard going, but that’s our fault, as we decided to travel by a ropey old Ambassador Taxi. (We simply have to make it a REAL Indian trip). Our journey is broken up with lots of stops on the way. First up is the trip to Kodanadu elephant camp. It is hardly signposted at all. We park up on the main road and walk down a muddy winding road to a wide river. It is the day before Easter Friday, and the church across the water is giving the good news to a delirious happy-clappy crowd of punters all dressed in orange. On our side of the water, we have a group of elephant mahouts (trainers) who are going through their ablutions. Amid much clearing of throats and gobbing on the floor and into the water, they proceed to clean their teeth in the river, and then wash their shirts and smalls with a little bar of soap.
There is a ripple of excitement from the crowd of tourists. We stand back to get a good view of the first elephant. A huge male tusker appears at the brow of the road. We are secretly worried that he might skid his full length on all the phlegm scattered on the floor. Soon after there follow 3 smaller females. Sadly, one of them has only about 10 inches of chain separating both her back feet. She shuffles along. Thereafter, we witness the cruelty of the elephant trainers. They have 2 sticks. One has a smooth metal tip, the other has a hooked tip, for grabbing the tail, feet chains or neck collar. Three elephants immediately comply with the whipping, and lay in the river, to be scrubbed by coconut husks. These know the drill. The other however, makes a dash for the open water, followed by the angry shouts of his trainer, a skinny old guy with a beard and nappy. This young elephant hasn’t yet had the spirit crushed out of her, and furiously shakes her head and splashes her trunk in the water, then attempts to swim. We are struck by the mixed feelings we have. Fascination and awe, to be so close to these magnificent animals, and see them enjoying the water, yet sadness too, watching them be beaten for non-compliance. In the end, the sadness wins through, and we leave early. We refuse to pay the Indians to be able to pet/feed the elephants.
Later, on the way to Munnar we visit a spice farm, and get to see all the food spices in their natural form, that we usually only ever see in powder form, in plastic packets back home. It seems that every plant has curative properties for everything that ails ‘ya. Oh, and it is used in Ayurveda. After this we see some impressive waterfalls from the roadside, and take some pictures. Because it is very dry (April) there is only a comparative trickle of water.
We reach Munnar, and see the weirdly undulating rows of tea plants across rolling hills, with huge granite boulders dotted around, which look like elephants from a distance. After lunch at a cracking good Gujarati restaurant, we visit the Kanan Devan Tea Museum. It’s quite an interesting place. We are introduced to drinking tea with cardamom, and take away some packs to enjoy in Blighty. At around 5.00pm we go to our hotel, and watch sunset over the misty mountains on the veranda.

 
 

 
 

Day Ten,

The next day in Munnar, we travel to see a dam, then echo point (which is full of holidaying Indians, It is Good Friday, after all). Echo Point looked quite ...er, pointless, so we asked our driver to give it a miss. Just further down the hill is a rather nice garden/flower nursery. We spent 45 minutes taking photos. From then on, we made our way back to Kochi, stopping here and there for photos, and to see wild monkeys which were scrounging for bananas, and harassing a roadside shack/shop. We got back to Kochi in the afternoon to watch the Easter procession at 6.00pm. At about 5.45 the heavens opened, and we got a massive thunderstorm. It came down in buckets. The queues of devotees weren’t entirely disappointed, as they’d seen Jesus as we passed. Many nudged each other, some chuckled, some pointed, and somebody even muttered ‘Jesus’. (I have very long hair, and a beard, and am treated as somewhat of a novelty in this place!) The rain lasted for a couple of hours, and brought with it the customary power-cut. Thankfully, most hotels and restaurants are equipped with generators, so the night was filled with the clatter of motors and the waft of diesel fumes on the air. Every establishment reverts to using fans, and not air-conditioning. Our hotel had their air-con running on a different circuit, so in the event of a power-out, at least the ceiling fans stopped your brains boiling.

 
   
 

Day Eleven

We had visited all of the places of interest in Fort Kochi by now. The Hindu temples could only be seen from the road, the synagogue was closed for a Jewish holiday, and some places were just plain crap, e.g. the Dutch Cemetery and Old Fort Kochi Jail. We decided to go and see Mangalavanam Bird Sanctuary. We started off on the ferry for Bolgatty (5 rupees fare each). Landing at Ernakulam, we walked up along the promenade toward the Keralan High Court. By the time we reached the Rainbow Bridge, we decided to take a Rickshaw the rest of the way. On first impressions, Mangalavanam seems to be a seldom visited place. It suffers from a crap location, and the fact that nobody really knows where it is, or even what it is. We were eagerly greeted by an enthusiastic chap, who didn’t have a great grasp of English. We asked if we needed to pay an entry fee, and were replied with ‘Yes, yes, you follow me’. It’s a small place, and even at 8.00 in the morning, there are few birds or animals listed in the guidebook. We are beckoned over to a parapet, where I proceeded to film a large collection of returning fruit bats. The bats are huge, and interesting to watch. At this point, I suddenly realise that the wall that I thought I was leaning on, is in fact the guide’s hand! I point out to my wife in Italian that I think the guy is a sausage-jockey. My wife’s GAYDAR is very acute, and she’d realised way before me. She manages to control her laughter while the guide tells me he loves me, and starts to caress my ponytail. Normally, I’d have reacted more aggressively to this kind of attention, but had a vision of us getting deported for putting an Indian guy in hospital. We beat a hasty retreat. On the ferry back I am treated to lots of ponytail fondling and leg-pulling.
Back in Fort Kochi we are soon accosted by a persistent Rickshaw driver who wants to take us to an art gallery. Intrigued, we agree. It turns out that there are a lot of them, and they are in fact just shops that sell handicrafts, controlled by the Kashmiri Mafia. The prices are exaggerated and unrealistic. As an example, a cedar wood carved elephant is quoted as costing £100 pounds sterling. Later on, I found the same thing on the market, and the guy wanted 1000 rupees, or about 12 pounds sterling. I went back to the Kashmiri shop and asked him if he could match the price. He disappeared for 2 minutes to discuss with his brother, and came back to say he couldn’t match the price. It just goes to show that we weren’t very far from the price, as he didn’t refuse flat-out immediately. After talking to our friend Stanley Wilson on Princess Street, he advised us to go to ‘Indian Industries’ which is owned by a nice guy who actually puts price tickets on all his stuff. (It’s something which you definitely won’t find anywhere else in Kochi!) We decided to do our entire souvenir shopping here.

 
   
 

Day Twelve,

We happen to pass by Stanley Wilson’s office, and he invites us to his house for lunch. This is the third time he’s invited us, so we don’t want to seem rude, so we accept.  Stanley’s wife Jasmine does a Keralan cooking class, so the food is top-notch. Unfortunately, we don’t eat great amounts of food, so we can’t eat everything. In truth, there’s enough food on the table to feed a football team. After lunch, we chat about all sorts of things, and then take a rickshaw back to the hotel. It’s slowly dawning on us that Indian hospitality is very genuine. In England, people lead quite insular lives, and are not ready to greet strangers so readily. This takes a long while to get used to. Also, every time we’ve smiled and said hello, EVERY SINGLE Indian person has responded with the same.
In the afternoon we see a few coach loads of tourists unload near the fishing nets. A snake charmer sits nearby surrounded by tourists who quite obviously are not short of a few dollars. NOT ONE of them gives the guy money, even though he does his routine twice, and gets bitten 3 times, by 3 different cobras. We give him 20 rupees for his trouble and he seems happy. Later on we go to the Chariot Restaurant for something to eat. The place is deserted, so we choose a table under the electric fan. Ten minutes later, a party of 12 Indians arrive and tell us curtly to ‘Move!’ We refuse, and then the waiters tell us to move. There’s a difference between asking and telling, so we just up and walk away. After that, we eat at the Old Courtyard Restaurant, which have a bigger menu, for only slightly higher prices. The food is vastly better too.

 
 

Day Thirteen,

Today is the day that I have my very first ever massage, Ayurvedic of course. On reflection, I’m not sure if Ayurvedic is Sanskrit for ‘sadistic’, as it bloody hurt! A guy takes my 600 rupees and tells me to strip bollock naked, and puts a thong on me. He then proceeds to cover me in a mixture of cardamom-infused linseed oil. I have to say that I was quite underwhelmed by it, and felt no benefits either during or afterwards. The massage takes 45 minutes, and the shower afterwards takes 15 minutes, and still doesn’t manage to remove the oily feeling all over. My missus watches (and films) my agony, then chickens out. She goes for just a foot massage. A female masseur then proceeds to try to make her lame for the next 30 minutes.
That night, we decided to take in a traditional Indian dance. It was far better than the kathakali in our opinion. For a start, the music doesn’t make your ears bleed, and the dancing is really rather quaint.

 
 

Day Fourteen,

We see a few strange rickshaws around Fort Kochi. They are all customized with crazy stuff like tiger skin and Dukes of hazard paint jobs etc. It seems some crazy folk are doing a charity drive up to Assam in the north. We hope they’ve got kick-ass insurance, and a big Lord Ganesha statue for the dashboard. Later on we visit the Santa Cruz Basilica. Meh. We live in Italy, so are not at all interested in the Catholic churches, but go anyway, as it’s so near to the hotel. We’ve really worked through the places to see in Fort Kochi, so just spend the day mooching around aimlessly. A rickshaw driver tells us about the naval museum at Dronacharya, so we give it a visit. It’s a bizarre place, with lots of 3D murals down corridors showing the seafaring history of Cochin. It kills an hour, we figure.

 
 

Day Fifteen,

After a day of wandering, we pack our bags and take a midnight taxi to Kochi airport for our 3.00 AM flight to Dubai, then on to Blighty. The departure lounge has air conditioning, and some ATM machines. Why on earth they don’t have this in the arrivals lounge, we’ll never know.


Conclusions,
All in all, I enjoyed the holiday. My wife liked it a lot less than me. I kept telling her to lower her standards, and then lower them again. It’s true that Kerala is supposed to be more geared up for holidaymakers than the rest of India, bar Goa, of course. But, it’s still a culture shock to see so much poverty, and dirty, messy streets. You can see that it’s possible to travel around India for any budget, but even when you pay for a higher standard, it’s still rudimentary. I wanted an out-of-the-way adventure, while my wife wanted an all-inclusive holiday with luxuries, and no nasty surprises. I would definitely do India again, and would recommend Kerala to everyone. I would just suggest that they do a good bit of research beforehand, so they know exactly what to expect. Most people go for more than 2 weeks, so they need to be sure that it will not be a waste of time and money. I hope that this diary will be of some help to anyone that is considering this fantastic place as a holiday destination.


Namaste, Russ