Kerala, India

Our plane touched down in Kerala, and we stepped out into a humid and tropical evening. Palm trees lined the road from the airport and we passed churches stringing up their Christmas decorations. 

It was early December, and we were planning to stay in a couple of different areas, spending some time in the backwaters, and some time in Kochi, the Keralan state capital. Our first stop was at a little guest house in Kumarakom, on the edge of the backwaters. The humid evening had turned into a stormy night by the time we checked into our room, and we settled down to plan our time in Kerala.

Nicola had read somewhere that the backwaters of Kerala are best experienced by boat. Sounds entirely logical, but somewhere in the research she’d overlooked exactly which boat to get. So, we ended up doing in-depth research of every type of boat available, just to make sure we didn’t miss ‘the whole point of the place’, as Nicola put it. We ended up booking two boats in two days. 

The next morning, we woke and set about getting ourselves boat number one. The owner of the guest house knew a man who knew a man, and before long we were on a little canoe, with a man paddling us through the small canals of Kerala. We passed little houses set on the water, children splashing about on the riverbank while their mum washed their clothes. It was about 35° and humid, and with no shelter over the canoe we quickly got very warm indeed. At one point we passed through about two thousand ducks, and I thought I was experiencing the first signs of heatstroke.

Boat number two, on day number two, thankfully came with both a sunshade and a motor which allowed us to explore a lot more of the backwaters and Lake Vembanad, including a posh looking hotel adorned in Christmas decorations. With limited food in the local shop and no real way of cooking in our guest house, we headed to this posh hotel for our dinner, spending the princely sum of £8 each. At the end of the meal, with fairly limited context, the waiter slipped me his number, assuring me he is one of the few people who can get me onto the Lakshadweep Islands. Useful man to know.

The boats aside, one major highlight of Kumarakom was the bird sanctuary. Every person we spoke to would start by tentatively asking us if we’d already been to the bird sanctuary. Then, after we’d said no, they’d breathe a sigh of relief and tell us that we should count ourselves lucky as there are absolutely no birds in there. Apparently, all the birds escaped, and there are now far more birds outside of the sanctuary than inside. We, and everyone we spoke to, found this very funny indeed.

The final stop in Kerala was the colonial capital, Kochi. We arrived at Waltons Homestay, and were met by owners, the no-nonsense Christopher Walton and his daughter Charlotte. We sat in the reception for about an hour while Mr Walton shared his outlook on life, including the key phrase that he kept drumming into us: “why pay for more when you are happy with less”. It’s a rule to live by. At Waltons Homestay we met a gaggle of other travellers, from Switzerland, Germany and New Zealand, and spent a lovely few days as part of a slightly dysfunctional family, having breakfast together every morning, and even a big group dinner at one point.

Kochi itself is an unusual place, a little haven of colonialism which doesn’t seem to have changed much since the British finally left. At one point we were exploring the spice markets, when a very elderly man stopped us on the street, declared that he was 95, and had worked for a British company during the Raj. He showed us his gold watch and reeled off the name of the London headquarters, which we later checked, and it seemed he had worked for a tea import business. He then started talking enthusiastically about a wide range of political assassinations he remembered, so we made our excuses and continued exploring the city.

WIth Kochi our last stop, we were sad to be leaving India – it had been a really wonderful adventure in such a vibrant, chaotic and warm-hearted place. We’d been made to feel so welcome by everyone we’d met, and left with a promise to ourselves that we’d be back to explore more of the incredible country.