A month ago, the prospect of resuming my travels after dad's sudden stroke was not even on the cards. After just 36 hours in the Maldives, I'd jumped on the first flight to the Canary Islands, sharing shifts at his bedside as he fought sepsis, pneumonia and critical brain damage. But he's defied all prognoses and, with walking deep in his blood, is taking steps - quite literally - back to his beloved Brownrigg Farm.
So, on the family's insistence, I made the trip back East from Arrecife to Kochi (triple-offsetting my carbon footprint even though I know that's still nowhere near enough) .
The God of Small Things depicts 1960s Keralans as living turbulent lives against a sleepy backdrop of spice-filled backwaters, wild Arabian surf and furtive tigers. Today, as a communist thorn in Modhi’s
side, this sickle flag-flying state is holding firm as India moves ever Trump-wards.
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| Kochi's famous chinese fishing nets |
This section of my itinerary was always going to be as part of an organised
cycling, hiking and kayaking tour with Much Better Adventures. Even by normal people's standards (not misanthropes like me), it’s a
gamble booking group packages – you never know what/who you’re going to get. As
I learned in Costa Rica, it only takes one really annoying person to tarnish a trip! But I'd had some great group adventures in the past and I was more than ready for someone else to take the reigns logistics-wise.
With Air India screeching its dilapidated wheels to a halt in a murky haze and 40 degrees of ‘stifling humidity’ (direct quote from the weather app), I was full-frontal back in India for the first time in more than two decades.
The signature smog does make for good sunsets though! I fought the jetlag by meandering Kochi's promenade of ice cream and kite stalls before meeting my fellow tourers - 14 Americans/Brits/Irish of varying ages - and no annoying weirdos in sight, phew!
Cycling village life
We were up with the sun to get in the saddle before the heat of the day. However, as with India logistics and the compromises of group travel, it was boiling by the time we got on the bikes. 50km of ‘undulating
terrain’ and crazy road-crossings were nothing compared to mounting/dismounting the crossbar - picture lots of women slow-motion toppling into ditches where cows were quietly grazing. Hour by
hour, more of us gave into the temptation of the air-conditioned rescue vehicle. I lasted to the final 10km
but the heat/humidity got me. It was fantastic though, getting our first
glimpse of rural Kerala where villages grow/share pineapples, cocoa, papaya, jackfruit and more.
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| The final stage in small-scale rubber production - trees are tapped for rubber sap, which is treated and rolled into sheets. |
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| Stopping for a tea break midway - obviously we were mistaken for the Maillot Jaune all the time |
Our tented camp that night was in a bird sanctuary on the Periyar
river. After a local walk and another amazing Keralan meal, it was early to bed
for us all.
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| 4-legged friends are blessed too! |
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| You can almost hear the mozzies... |
Western Ghats
Next morning we cycled to the edge of the Western Ghats (mountain range that runs up western India), seeing along the way Indian Giant Squirrels, Malabar Trogons/Hornbills and the Frog Mouth, a much more handsome creature than its name suggests. A jeep safari took us to a stone-age dolman and a village
existing almost-entirely off bamboo. While the programme was responsibly geared
towards contributing to such communities, I can’t write about it without
cringing at the ‘circus’ feeling that such tourism evokes in me (more on that
in all my other blogs).
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| Pics don't capture the near-vertical bare rock faces we climbed up in these cool cats |
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| Walking in the footsteps of elephants in the Western Ghats |
 | What the photo doesn't capture is the loud creaking and cracking as the bamboo dies and will be rapidly succeeded by its seeds, making it the ultimate sustainable crop
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| Don't mess with a scythe-bearing woman: These tribal ladies made a bamboo mat in seconds, sadly a dying art. |
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| Picture evidence of my misanthropy |
The Tiger Came to Tea
As someone who barely drinks tea and hates cardamom - and having hiked tea country in Sri Lanka and visited endless plantations in Kenya - the ‘Tea and Cardamom Country’ section of the tour didn't hold much excitement. But I ate my words with great walks and guides reaffirming the Two Great Formulae of Tea:
Altitude + [2xleaf+1xbud] = Great Tea*
Dust from factory floor = Tea Bag Tea*
*Fair trade criteria of fair wages and living conditions not considered and would apply to both categories
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| Women bringing their pickings for weighing [photo credit: Phil] |
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| The apprentices were sacked instantly by Tata Tea corp. |
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| Sampling the goods - far-left is tea bag tea, third in is 'two leaves and a bud' orange pekoe ('orange' after the Dutch process, nothing to do with orange flavour) |
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| A very windy escarpment hike between Kerala and Tamil Nadu |
Next stop: Periyar Tiger Reserve. Although The Stripy One (and The
Spotty One) remained elusive (as expected - they're barely seen more than once a year by tourists), we were lucky to see Indian Wild Dogs and seven elephants (inc calves). Many of the armed safari guards are ex-poachers or local tribespeople who were moved when the national park was formed - this sits much better with me as ecotourism in action than 'tribal village tours' (again, no right answers....).
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| The majestic Indian Rain Tree |
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| Parts of the walk felt very English countryside! |
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| The ancestors of our pooches still roam the earth - Indian Wild Dog |
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| River cruise with stunning scenery |
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| Photo credit Marge! |
Boat and Beach Time
I was relieved when days of mountain switch-backs gave way to flat roads in rice/coconut country. I maintained my travel sickness vigilance as I boarded our Keralan houseboat for the night. I'm glad to say that, with eyes firmly on the horizon, I not only endured the sunset cruise, dinner and night onboard - I actually enjoyed it. In fact, cruising the steamy backwaters was probably the highlight of the trip (even Alex and I's bathroom encounter with a giant cockroach).
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| Eyes to the front while my fellow travellers chilled on board |
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| Timeless scenes on the backwaters |
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| Sunset pics are always rubbish but had to sneak one in! |
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| Our home with air conditioned bedrooms and private chef! |
We ended the tour at Marari beach where I said goodbye to the lovely guides, drivers and co-travellers. In a way, it was lucky that I got Delhi belly at this point (an AC room beat minibus travel any way) but it was also gutting not to enjoy some final sun-lounging time. Overall, the trip had reminded me that I need laughter, banter and reflective conversation more than I'd care to admit. I’m a grand master at going solo - and I still stand by the fact that you only truly get that spine-tingling 'wow' feel when alone in nature or a new place - but no man is island - even hard, impatient old me!
[Postscript: Mumbai]
I've just spent 48 hours in Mumbai en-route to Bangkok. Delhi belly continued and saw me being sick all night in a mozzie and bedbug-infested pit of a room with no loo roll (big fail of booking.com that descriptions/images were years out of date!). I moved hotel, spent 12 hours on netflix and then clawed things back with a private tour of the old
city and tea at the Taj Hotel. The tour was run by Ali, a brilliant Muslim activist who’d never been to school (a ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ story that sounds cliche but various things he did/said evidenced his integrity). My taxi had taken me along the edge of Dharavi, Asia's largest slum, and seemingly endless miles of apocalyptical destruction, dust and poverty - to Mumbai's colonial heart, complete with Cambridge-esque universities, law students in their black tie and hotels like the Taj serving cocktails and tea to the 1% of the 1% (including me - though I'm a pauper compared to their average clientele - see my previous blog notes about 'white privilege').
So, I've ended my brief return to India as I've always done - with a sense of amazement and awe offset by guilt and disgust at wealth extremes. I can only count on the legal 'suits' I saw, people like Ali and those I met in Kerala to keep standing up for a fair India.
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| Hotels could learn a thing or two from this bakery hole in the wall - fresh crusty bread for the first time on my travels! |
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| National museum and ex-Mughal palace |
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| University law dept |
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| Taj hotel where I lowered their average guest income by checking in for tea |
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