08 | December | 2017 | Where shall we go to next?

After our two nights in Periyar we were on the move again and off to one of the stops I’d most been looking forward to. We were on our way to the Keralan backwaters. First we’d be stopping in the Backwater Heritage Homestay for two nights and then we’d be on a houseboat for one night.
The drive down from Periyar was again a really long, bendy, precarious route and we seemed to be heading downhill for most of the four hours it took. Once again we passed through some splendid scenery and by now we were able to point out the various different plantations (tea, coffee, cardamon, rubber etc) as we passed through. The road was incredibly busy with folk coming and going to the two and a half month long Hindu festival at Sabarimala. They might have been pilgrims but they weren’t very good drivers.
We had a few stops along the way. First of all at a quirky old fashioned cafe for a cuppa coffee and a loo break, then Jane wanted to stop in a ‘real town’ and have a look at their shops. Vaiju pulled up in just such a place and out we got. The temperature down here was incredibly hot in the sunshine so it seemed a little incongruous that we were visiting their local Christmas shops trying to find the best giant hanging star! We’d seen these all around Kerala and we needed our own. We also found that we needed to visit a local hardware store where we once again bought presents for the lucky people back home. We finished our Xmas shopping trip with a very acceptable cornetto.
The next stop involved the purchase of alcohol from a Government store. This one was in a very busy city called Kottayam. They are exceedingly seedy places only frequented by men, but they do sell their beer and wine very cheap (compared to hotels) and something was telling us that we’d need this to get through the next few days….
We also needed to exchange some money as we were by now running out of rupees. Vaiju found the place down the back streets of Kumarakom which is itself in the backwaters and Jane got excellent service from the three ladies who served her.
Finally, after much driving round some really tiny lanes and over bridges over the narrow waterways and asking for directions several times, we found ourself at the Backwater Heritage Homestay. The place looked really lovely from the outside and Xavier greeted us warmly, although with limited English.
Vaiju left us to it as he was off to stay with his sister for the next couple of nights so we were on our own. As he left, we were being distracted by some duck herding that was going on in the backwater river just by the garden. Basically, two guys in canoes herding about one hundred noisy ducks up river.
Well, when we were shown our room it was the hottest little box I’d ever had the pleasure of sleeping in. It is a really old traditional house but this room was like a cell. It was small, dark, humid and had no windows. In addition there was a welcome party of at least 3 mosquitos that we could see. Oh gawd.
Anyway, before we had to put up with that we went for a short walk with the other guests who we’d get to know better later. We walked along to the local fish farm and watched a man climb a coconut tree to tap toddy. Then we brought some back to taste. You have got to me kidding me. The stuff looked revolting. It’s basically coconut water/sap which ferments but the stuff in the bottle had brown sediment at the bottom and a variety of insects floating on the top. Er, no thanks, we will open one of our cold beers.
When we got back we ate our dinner on the verandah of the other part of the property where the other guests were sleeping. The food was good, simple, plentiful and definitely local with a mix of fish and veggie dishes. Bananas for pudding were by now starting to take their toll on my tummy.
We had an excellent night talking with the other guests putting off the inevitable of having to go to our cell to sleep.
By the time we did, Jane was completely paranoid about the mosquitos and she had completely covered herself in Deet, said she was wearing all her clothes to bed and turned the air conditioning (oh yes) down to 17 degrees. The room was absolutely freezing and so I too had to put my fleece and tracky trousers on but still couldn’t get warm as we only had a sheet for cover. It was horrendous and in the middle of the night (4am) I’d had no sleep and had developed both a cold and a serious sense of humour failure when Jane asked if I was ok. The air con went off but the temperature barely lifted. Not good. The scenery on these backwaters had better make up for it.

Our new dentist!

The next morning we were on the go again and after another breakfast of dosa, banana and almost certainly pineapple and homemade honey, we said our farewells and got on the road at about 9-30. We learned over breakfast that the previous night’s storm was now officially being called a cyclone and it even had a name -Okhi. The local news was warning that this was going to continue to wreak havoc over Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Lakshwadeep islands for the next few days. Oh goody…but at least the news was also full of helpful tips of dos and dont’s in a cyclone (see photos)
Our next stop was Periyar and Jane had asked me what the journey to Periyar would be like. I had to confess I had no idea but I thought Periyar would be down a bit from these great heights. The weather up here was still cool and cloudy but we got some spectacular views as we set off down the same road we’d seen all the tea pickers the day before. This road was tiny and extremely downhill and bendy. To start with we drove through lots of tourist accommodation offering jeep safaris and elephant rides. But as we got lower it became more remote and for once there was little along the wayside , except jungle!
The road was fairly precarious and it soon became apparent just how much damage the cyclone had done as we saw many trees and branches down and in places these had fallen either across the road or pulled down power cables with them. I think it was lucky that we’d not been trying to do this journey the day before because by now at least, the people were busy clearing things up and making repairs. No wonder the electricity and wifi at the Rose Garden was so bad and we now felt slightly guilty that we thought they’d merely been rationing us!
After about three and a half hours we made it to Periyar. Along the way we stopped once for a brief unsavoury toilet break and bought a bag of poppadums for later. We had nothing else on our itinerary today and we were looking forward to being back in a luxury hotel, The Spice Garden. So Vaiju dropped us off and in we skipped. This place is quite a big resort but it had a slight feel of an upmarket holiday camp to it. Upon arrival we were told about the list of activities they had going on and they seemed to informatively label everything. The swimming pool looked inviting but as it was still rather damp and cloudy here and the water was cold, I decided even I wasn’t going to try it.
That afternoon we decided to have a venture into town by ourselves but there were mostly just tourist tat shops selling all the same things and at a higher price than Cochin. We did, however, enjoy shopping for gifts in the toy shack. Lucky children!
After a while we were too hot and bothered so we called it a day and returned to the enclave. Now the really good thing about this hotel is that it has a fabulous bar. It’s called ‘Woods Bar’ and is named after the Englishman who was the head ranger at Periyar Tiger Reserve back in the times when the English ruled. The room was filled with old photos of tiger hunts on elephant back and men in pith helmets etc. It had a full sized snooker table and a photo of the Duke of Kent playing on it when he had visited. Jane and I enjoyed a beer in here and met some chaps from Liverpool, via the Greek Islands, who told us about how, since they’re now retired, they spend months on end just wandering around India. It sounds great but I’m not sure that’s for me!
Later than expected because of all our chatting, Jane and enjoyed an excellent meal in the hotel’s ’50 miles around’ restaurant. The concept is that everything you eat has come from within fifty miles of the hotel. Here we ate stuffed ladies fingers (okra) and then various Keralan vegetables dishes, followed by the most delicious local pudding which was like a coconut pannacota/soufflé. Very nice indeed.
The next day we were up and ready to explore more of Periyar and we started off by having a tour of a spice garden. Not another one- I hear you say. Yes, and in fact we said the same thing but went along with it anyway as it seems it would be quite short and we didn’t want to be rude. So, off we went and met up with Sajid , our guide for the tour. It was quite a small scale garden compared to Jose’s rubber plantation but Sajid was particularly good at pointing out the medicinal benefits of all the plants. By the time we’d finished we knew what to do if we got anything from a common sore throat, arthritis, upset tummy, ladies problems and even cancer. He was a really sweet chap who showed us lovely pictures of his wife and kids and explained to us why, unlike lots of other Keralan people, he didn’t want to work abroad. He said that he loved where he worked, he didn’t want to be away from his family and he got to meet lots of people from around the world and learn from them as a guide. I don’t think you can knock his logic.
Anyway, after doing some quality shopping here (more gifts, lucky people!) we decided that we couldn’t really come to Periyar without at least visiting the tiger reserve. It seemed a bit odd that this wasn’t on our itinerary but Vaiju explained that we wouldn’t see any animals. Don’t put him in charge of sales here.
Still we decided we would just go for the boat ride, even though I’d read about it online and it sounded hellish. So we caught the little rickety bus that took us and all the Indian tourists to the boat landing. Nobody was impressed by my attempts to get them to sing my song about going to see a Tiger, especially Jane.
Once at the boat landing we were told that we would be on the 1-45 boat which meant we had an hour and 15 mins to wait. Still there were some nice seats we could relax on. Until the monkey mafia moved in. Then we spent the rest of the time being terrorised by monkeys as they sat around looking menacing and then moved in as a gang to try and grab anything they could including water bottles or your video camera. At one point I’d been sort of laughing at an Indian family braving it out when unbeknownst to me one jumped on the backpack on my back and made me very cross. They were even terrorising people in the inside bit and when Jane questioned this with the security guard, she said ‘This, monkey area.’ As if to say, they were here first, what do you want me to do about it?
Fair enough. Basically, I could not wait to get on that boat. Even though I’d been looking at it and felt it may have a few Health and Safety issues. Starting with the fact that it looked like it had been built in the 1920s and hadn’t undergone an MOT since. As soon as they announced boarding everyone rushed in an unorderly fashion to get on, even though we had numbered seats. Once on, we were all instructed to don our orange life vests and that’s how we sat for the whole one and a half hour trip. Plus , we were instructed not to stand up! I’m sure this was probably a good thing because if we had seen an elephant I’m not sure the boat would have coped with the rush of people to the left!
Needless to say, we didn’t see tigers or elephants but the Sambol deer and cormorants were rather splendid!
The day ended well, as in the rickety bus back out of the park, Jane got chatting with a nice lady who gave her her business card and offered to do our dental treatment next time we were in India.