So last September, my boyfriend and I started planning our trip around the world; there were flights to be booked, tours and transport to be organised and essentials to buy. Once I'd finished my internship in London on January 31st, I moved back home and worked two jobs to pay for my journey of a lifetime. After months of work, May rolled around and I could finally start my adventure.
SOUTHERN INDIA
"The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it." - Rudyard Kipling
“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst...The nights are clear but suffused with sloth and sullen expectation."- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
After a hideous journey which began at 9pm at London Heathrow, we arrived at Kochi International Airport in the late afternoon of the following day. Tired, but surprised by the quality of the aeroplane food, we picked up our backpacks from the minuscule baggage carousel and headed to withdraw some much-needed Rupees from one of the dubious looking cash-machines. First fail of the trip - my card wasn't recognised. Luckily, my boyfriend's was and we were able to plonk ourselves in a taxi and head into the city centre, and then to Fort Kochi. Travelling over on the tiny car ferry to Mattancherry, I was struck by the sheer volume of motorcycles crowding onto the vessel and surrounding us. The longer I stayed in India, the more I came to realise how much a part of life they are there - whole families of four or five crowd onto a battered Yamaha and zoom around the churned-up roads, beeping incessantly as they dodge brightly painted lorries and sacred cattle.
After the taxi disembarked, we were dropped at our lodgings for the night: 'The Old Harbour Hotel'. It felt like an oasis in the middle of a hectic mesh of auto-rickshaws, goats, children, dogs and fishing nets. A 300-year-old colonial Dutch building with Portuguese influences and a simple yet luxurious feel, I picked The Old Harbour Hotel because I wanted my first night in India to be special and considered, and the hotel certainly made it so. The staff were attentive but not overbearing (sometimes an issue with service in India), the room huge and cool, the pool well-maintained and quiet and the food to die for (hand-made basil and coconut ice-cream anyone?!) I know what you're thinking, this screams 'flash packer'. But really, this hotel was crazy cheap by English standards, and my boyfriend had already done the standard 'slumming it around SE Asia in his Gap Yah' thing - we wanted to experience Asia without getting sick, tired, robbed and bitten to death (managed to fall victim to three of these). The Old Harbour was easily the most expensive place we stayed in India, and almost on the whole trip, and was still under £40 a night each. Considering our home-stay in the next town was £7 a night each, I wasn't too bothered.
Fort Kochi is a beautiful and eclectic mix of culture, architecture and life. Grand white Portuguese Basilicas overlook towering Chinese fishing nets, colourful graffiti and art cafés hide around corners, and giant moss-covered Banyan trees drape their aerial roots over the ramshackle roads like something out of Avatar. Above all, Fort Kochi hits you with a dose of colour - vibrant Saris, heavily ornamented Hindu Temples, neon auto-rickshaws and bright posters advertising music concerts and traditional Kathakali performances - it's all here.
We spent the day strolling through the streets admiring churches and temples alike. The Santa Cruz Basilica at the heart of the town is probably the most striking mix of Christian faith and Indian exuberance I've ever encountered - neon halos around the Virgin Mary appear next to a gently fluttering St George's flag above Christ on the Cross, and outside tonnes of baby-pink ruched satin mark the afternoon's wedding ceremony. The more time I spent in Kerala, the more I realised how culturally and religiously inclusive the state is. In a 5 mile stretch of road you'll see a hugely ornate white church next to a gorgeous mosque with luminous minarets next to a colourful and richly detailed Hindu temple - and everyone happy going about their business.
Later in the afternoon, we admitted defeat from the humidity (no strappy tops and shorts here, in India you have to be covered from neck to ankles to avoid unwanted attention) and sloped back to the privacy of the hotel pool. That night, we enjoyed room service with a beautiful view from our balconies over the twinkling lights of the garden.
The next day, we arranged for a taxi to take us to our next stop: Alleppey. At this point, everything was still insanely cheap to us; we paid £15 for a 2 hour journey in a private, air-conditioned taxi (although by the end of the trip, I was haggling ferociously over a £1.50 T-Shirt in Bali). We arrived at our home-stay accommodation, and this was where my Trip-Advisor obsession really came into its own. I chose Venice Castle home-stay because of excellent reviews, and we were not disappointed. A neat double bedroom with an immaculate en-suite, cable TV and breakfast (Curries, idlis, sambars, chutneys, fruit and of course, tea). The owner even came to our room to deal with a spider, effectively shooing it out with a broom. He also organised our trip around the backwaters for the next day - the highlight of a trip to Kerala and the reason we made a stop at Alleppey. To be honest, the town itself isn't hugely interesting or exciting, and doesn't really deserve the title of 'Venice of the East'. However, it allowed us a relatively smooth passing into the crazy world that is India - an experience my friends who had visited the country described as 'a cultural slap in the face'. And this is where we discovered Parantha (flakey Indian flatbread far superior to naan).
Our day on the backwaters was amazing; we drifted along tiny waterways and into vast lakes, visited riverbank villages and snoozed in the afternoon heat on our little barge. It was so tranquil and peaceful (disregarding the loud party-barges full of Indian tourists), and as with everything in India, pretty cheap too. Soon it was time to pack up our bags again and head for the surf capital of India; Varkala. Established in the 60's and 70's as a hippie hot-spot, this little beach-side town has a definite surfer vibe. Although it does cater to tourists (tacky bead shops and tourist tat) I think we escaped the worst of it as we arrived perilously close to monsoon season, and lots of shops and restaurants were closed. In fact, it was the last week of business for the summer at Soul & Surf, the yoga and surf retreat where we'd chosen to stay.
Founded in 2010 by British/Scandi couple Ed and Sofie, Soul & Surf is India's second surf and yoga retreat. After quitting their jobs and travelling the world, they became stuck in Kerala - the heat, the waves, the food and the warmth of the locals, as well as the region being home to traditional Ayurvedic medicine - convinced them to stay. The place itself is rustic yet chic with an old colonial building making up the office/chill out area/ our bedroom, and has a lovely atmosphere. The home-made goodies at the cafe are excellent, and the view from the cliff edge unparalleled. Having a security guard posted by the gates at night made me feel more safe, and yoga classes at sunset on the rooftop were magical (if not horrendously sweaty) experiences.
Our surfing lesson was so much fun - we all bundled into jeeps one morning and headed down to the local surfing spot with our instructors and some local boys who'd caught the surfing bug. Four of us were relatively new to all this, and so had an introductory session with one of the guys. Before long we were all in the water and splashing around: I managed to make it onto my knees whilst my boyfriend went the whole way and stood a few times. After a few more tries and a bump to the head, I decided to call it a day, happy with the progress I'd made. We spent the afternoon chilling out and the evening enjoying a pizza and movie night with the rest of the staff and residents. It was a beautiful night, and the team had arranged tables and chairs with little candles everywhere along the cliff edge, and the film (a surfing one of course) was projected onto a giant white sheet with the occasional dog silhouette running across. The next evening was even more of an experience. Following a few recommendations, we headed to Kumari's house for an authentic southern Indian cooking lesson. We arrived at a little farm surrounded by cattle and chickens, to be greeted by a huge smiling Indian mama. Mama Kumari insisted I write everything she said down, so I have copious notes on how to make the delicious vegetable curries, pachabis, thorens and chutneys she put together. The result, after 3 hours of work, was a delicious traditional southern Indian Thali that we shared with some guys from Soul & Surf.
The next day, although we were tempted to surf again, we arranged to take an auto-rickshaw ride around Varkala with Anil, one of Soul & Surf's trusted drivers. He took us to some of the most picturesque places I visited in India; deserted beaches with fishermen bringing in the morning's catch, winding streets filled with colourful communist graffiti, an ashram devoted to one of India's most prolific gurus, and most stunningly, The Golden Island. We disembarked from our colourful rickshaw, and Anil guided us down to what looked like part of the backwaters we'd seen in Alleppey. He gestured to someone on the opposite bank, and a man in a tiny but exquisitely painted canoe poled his way over to us. We gingerly stepped onto the boat, and slowly poled our way across to the Island. The narrow waterway soon opened up into a vast lake, without a building in sight. The only sound was the smooth swish of the canoe through the water, and the faraway wail of a Bollywood classic on a radio. As we paddled, we looked down into the water and found it to be full of massive, spotted jellyfish - drawn into the lake from the backwaters and the sea by early monsoon rains. We arrived at the Island after a time, and proceeded to explore the sacred place and the elaborate Hindu temple hidden away amongst the palm trees. It was an amazing experience, and perhaps one of the best I had on my travels.
Early the next day, we headed over to Varkala station to catch a train back to Kochi - we were flying up to Delhi the next day. We tried to explain to the lady at the ticket office what we wanted and where we were going, and somehow came away with two tickets for the 7am train for a grand total of: 66p. Slightly dubious about the cost of our tickets and apprehensive about our imminent encounter with the Indian rail system, we waited on the platform and jumped on the first train we saw bound for Kochi. We settled down in a carriage with padded leather seats and barred, glass-less windows - only to be told by a ticket inspector that this was first class and our tickets were not. However, would we like to upgrade our tickets for a fee? Hmmm...how much we asked. The total cost of the upgraded tickets would be...£3.50 each. Done. We watched the countryside fly past in relative comfort, and arrived at Kochi 5 hours later. Once there, we got a taxi to our final hotel: The Marriott Courtyard. We had decided to treat ourselves as it was our one year anniversary - and who can resist a night of luxury every once in a while! The following morning we flew to Delhi to start the next part of our Indian adventure...coming soon!!
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