India - Part 1: Backwaters and Hill Stations

Trivandrum
We arrived in India following a night of little sleep – an all-nighter in the Kuala Lumpur Airport (which boasts a 24-hour chocolate shop!) and an early morning flight into Trivandrum, capital of Kerala, at the southern tip of India. With the 2-1/2 hour time change (what the heck is that ½ hour about?!) we landed at around 8:00 a.m. and caught a pre-paid taxi (helps limit taxi scams) to the YMCA, where Kelly had booked rooms for us and for her and Lex. They would be arriving later in the day from northern India, where they had spent the first week of their trip from Seattle. They would be joining us for the next three weeks as we made our way up the coast, visiting the Kerala backwaters and national parks up in the hill stations, on our way north to Mumbai. This would be the first time since leaving home that Colin had a same age buddy to travel with, and we were eagerly looking forward to it.
Taking a brief walk around the “Y”'s Trivandrum neighborhood, we were searching out something for breakfast, and one of the first things I noticed was that I was the only woman out on the streets.... or in the cafes, or anywhere I could see. Huh. I hoped that this was just a case of capital cities being notoriously provincial, and that this wouldn't be a sign of things to come. I'd heard good things about Kerala – center of the Indian women's rights movement, first democratically elected communist government, etc. OK, so: where the heck were all the women?!?
We had chai and chapatis at a small hole-in-the-wall cafe in an alley off the street around the corner from the YMCA, under the stares of a half dozen men taking a mid-morning tea break, then wandered across the street, dodging rickshaws and motorcycles (but nothing compared with SE Asian cities) to the government-run handicrafts warehouse, which had tables piled high with regional and tribal crafts from all parts of southern India. We browsed the silk and pashmina scarves, the soapstone carvings, the incense burners and jewelery, the masks and oversized wood carvings in the two adjacent warehouses. As we were preparing to leave, we noticed one more small hut around the side of the buildings, with a sign identifying it as the discount clearinghouse. We poked our heads in and Colin immediately noticed the plastic jars full of beads and stones placed among strings of of the same hanging from the wall. He spent the next half hour identifying all the gemstones he could find, and settled on buying a string of lapis lazuli – about 50 small stones – for 100 rupees (about US$2.00).* (*more on the stones later).


We headed back to the “Y” and found Kelly and Lex, just arrived and ready for some buddy-time (moms and kids alike!). That afternoon and the next morning, the boys horned in on some local kids' games of badmitton and ping-pong, and crashed a music class (with the encouragement of the music teacher) – the “Y” proved the perfect place to be with a couple of over-energetic 11 year old boys. ;-)
The second thing I noticed about Trivandrum that evening, as I headed out to get Colin an ice-cream from the corner store, was that in addition to no women, there was no beer, wine or booze to be found anywhere. I was beginning to get the feeling that Id fallen into a strict male-dominated muslim society, rather than the “enlightened” tales of Kerala I'd read and heard about. Fortunately, as we moved north starting the next day, women appeared with more regularity, and although the only wine to be found in Kerala was at government stores surrounded by down-and-out looking men, it did, at least, exist. Kelly's and my quest for the occasional bottle of wine became the source of some of our most trademark tales of India.

Backwaters
Leaving Trivandrum, we caught the train north to Kollam, where Kelly had reserved a beach cottage. When we arrived in Kollam, we went for lunch in town and called the cottage owner, only to discover that he had given away our accommodations to someone else, but had another place he wanted to show us instead. He picked us up in his jeep and drove us out of the city, past a couple temples, and down a narrow road to the seaside.
The cottage he had for us had three rooms, two of which were occupied, but he said we could share the third – a small, simple room around the side of the cabin with bamboo slat walls, and an excellent sunset view location with a small sandy beach next to the breakwater where the boys could play in the water.
He owned a restaurant in town and could bring us our meals upon request, and it was cheap. We agreed, on the understanding that we'd have the two front rooms the following day, which didn't materialize, but in the end really didn't matter. Once we'd figured out how to (kind of) pronounce the name of the beach we were on (Thirumullawarum) and where the local bus stops were, we were good to go.

That night, we walked to a nearby temple where an elephant Festival was taking place, arriving just in time for the grand finale of elephant processions, temple floats, drumming and highly stylized theater/dance on the main stage, where all the players were men, half of whom were dressed up in exaggerated drag.
It was a spectacle, fascinating, LOUD, and I can't imaging seeing anything like it anywhere else in the world. We caught a bus for our return, but when we realized it wasn't going in our direction, hopped off and walked the half hour back to our cabin in the dark, ducking the occasional headlight-less rickshaw or motorcycle. That night we slept well, despite the cramped quarters and occasional buzzing mosquito looking for an opening in our gerry-rigged nets.
Day two in Kollam, we took a rickshaw into town to take a tour of the Kerala backwaters, which start here and extend north.

We had a wonderful day slowly drifting through narrow canals, visiting boat building, coconut rope-making, and fishing families, and climbing coconut trees (well, Colin did anway). When we returned to our cabin in the evening, we moved into one of the two front rooms in the cabin, and found that a new couple of guests had arrived – they were Isreali toy makers who lived on a kibbutz. We had lovely conversation with them over a sunset dinner, and again fell hard asleep.
When we woke in the morning, it was time to move on again. We were heading to Allepey, further north along the backwaters, and again caught the train. We rode in an unreserved sleeper car, meaning we had to scramble to snag seats together (the seats and fold-down bunks are only reserved at night), but had the benefit of cushioned benches facing each other and open windows to catch a breeze and watch the passing countryside.
There were three young (20-something) Indians (one man and two women) who talked to us along the way and insisted on taking photos of us – we were to find ourselves repeatedly a local “tourist attraction” for locals as we traveled up the coast. ;-)

In Allepey, Kelly had booked a wonderful “homestay”-style guesthouse right on the backwater canals outside of town. When we arrived, we rejected the rickshaws crowding the station entrance for a full size taxi, so we wouldn't have to pile our baggage on our laps. The car dropped us at a small bridge, where our homestay host was waiting with a bicycle to help us transport our bags along the canal-side trail - 10-minutes later, we arrived at a nice two bedroom cabin fronted by hammocks and the backwater canals.
Every few minutes, a rattan-covered former rice-barge turned floating B&B chugged by, giving us hundreds of opportunities over the next few days to take romantic photographs of these beautifully-crafted and weathered boats.
At the same time, just a few days into our trip, the boys had been bickering and arguing, and after four months of not missing this aspect of life with an adolescent boy at all, I found I had no tolerance for it. As soon as Colin said “I think we need a break,” I agreed, and we spent the next day on a mom-and-son solo tour through the backwater canals in a pole-pushed dugout canoe.
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We drifted by beautiful clusters of lilypads, numerous large-beaked kingfishers, kids playing with toy boats by the waterside, and families doing laundry and bathing in the canals. We eventually spotted a sign for ice cream along a bulkhead. We asked our boatman to pull over and scrambled out to find not just ice cream, but an elegant, mature fishing eagle sitting on a perch out in front of the shop. Colin was fascinated, and the shop owner placed the bird on her arm and brought him over to Colin. The raptor proceeded to sit on Colin's arm, shoulder, and nearly his head, before he managed to return it to the shop owner with a minimum of talon scratches all over his body! The bird was also anointed with the characteristic red dye spot on its forehead that many Indian men and women wear. It was a delightful day, and the break seemed to do the boys some good.

That evening, we had a lovely candlelight dinner sitting under thatch-covered tables next to the canal – an assortment of vegetable curries and freshly fried fish – yum!


On our final day in Allepey, we made our way to the beach, playing in the surf and basking in the sun until sunset. Keeping to a stretch of sand fronting a resort set back in the trees (in order to avoid multi-species feces that pepper many of the beaches in the area, but are regularly removed by the resorts), we had the beach nearly to ourselves, not counting the pack of wild dogs a short but comfortable enough distance away.

The next morning had us on the train once again, headed for Ernakulum and historic Fort Kochi. We had a homestay a short walk from “downtown” Kochi – a charming neighborhood of narrow streets and cafes and crafts shops. At the end of a brief walk about town to get our bearings, Lex fell into one of the ubiquitous holes in the sidewalk in the fading light as we walked back and really banged up his leg. We tried to take his mind off it and compensate by playing a group game of Caton – truly fun! (if you haven't ever played it, run out and get a board!). The fates conspired instead though to make him more miserable - he woke up in the morning sick as a dog with food poisoning and was entirely out of commission for the day.

Despite feeling awful for him, Colin and I couldn't help but enjoy the town – it was the first walking-friendly place we had visited in India and we spent the day browsing in the shops, eating at the sidewalk food stalls, and watching the operation of the Chinese fishing nets along the waterfront.
Colin found a handmade drum seller and managed to get an hour-long lesson from him in how to play the traditional drums we was selling before finally breaking down and buying one (for more than he should have probably, but he was thrilled with his purchase anyway). In the evening, Lex was feeling well enough that we all went to the town cultural center for a sitar concert – beautiful!

Then came the mandatory cooking class – in the morning, Kelly and Colin and I all arrived at Leena's cooking school, in her kitchen, across from the town park, while Lex went back to the cultural center for a sitar class (he's a classical guitar player at home). While the food was great, the class was actually the one disappointment in our cooking adventures to date – instead of hands-on as all the others had been, we were expected to sit, and watch, and take notes on what Leena was doing. Hmm.... four hours of lecturing does not make for the most memorable “cooking” experience, especially for an 11 year old. Oh well, they cant all be standouts.
The evening made up for it though – we took the local ferry into Ernakulum, Kochi's modern sister-city, to attend another Elephant Festival.

We caught this one from the beginning, watching the elephants in their slow procession through the city streets and the temple musicians in concert in the light-strewn courtyard full of children playing and old men sitting beneath the trees as the night darkened. It was very cool, and again quintessentially Indian.

With only one day left, we crammed our last full day in Kochi (and the backwaters!) full to bursting.


We woke early in the morning for a full day touring the Kerala backwaters – a van picked us up at our homestay and took us to a houseboat where we would cruise the more open backwaters, dotted with islands, and enjoy a traditional Keralan lunch.


We then boarded several small dugout canoes and entered the narrow canals, getting out here and there to visit a small village, see a sight along the shore and sample local clams, tea, and "toody" - a coconut flower beer.

In the evening, we returned to the Kochi Cultural Center for a performance of Kathakali, Kerala's traditional theater/dance, arriving early to watch the preparations of makeup and masks necessary for each performance. We ended the day with a late dinner back at Beena's Homestay – one of many delicious and beautiful meals she and her husband prepared for us. In the morning, we would leave Kochi for an overnight trip to Thattakad, a bird sanctuary in the mountains a few hours drive northeast from Kochi - but that's beyond the backwaters, so part of the next blog post.....


Up Next: India Part 2 - Backwaters and Hill Stations