Lonely Planet - October 2011

Kerala
The Perfect Trip
Travelling in Kerala is as easy and rewarding as
a glide through its backwaters. From coconut
palm-lined coasts and rolling hills of tea to elephant
and tiger reserves, this slender state has a lot to offer
Words AMY KARAFIN | Photographs PHILIP LEE HARVEY
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October 2011
A young duck herder,
Vishnu Chrayil, surrounded
by his flock on a bank of
the backwaters.
OPPOSITE Fishermen pulling
in a net on Poovar Beach
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Your trip mapped out
KERALA
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Kick back on a sleepy beach, take it slow on the backwaters, explore Jewish history, see
where some of India’s finest tea is picked and – if you’re lucky – spot a Royal Bengal tiger
5 WAYANAD
Best for wildlife
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Few visitors spot Royal Bengal
tigers, but the abundance of
other wildlife in the area’s
reserves and sanctuaries is
more than consolation.
3 KOCHI
Best for history
MUNNAR
Best for tea
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Although its Jewish population
is sadly dwindling, the
synagogues of Jew Town, in
the Fort Kochi neighbourhood,
will leave a strong legacy.
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ALAPPUZHA
Best for backwaters
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This former colonial holiday
retreat is now one of India’s
major tea plantations. Look out
for unforgettable views of the
Western Ghats on the way.
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ABOVE The secluded,
crescent-shaped beach
of Surya Samudra Private
Retreats, considered by
many to be the best strip
of beach in all of Kovalam
Miles into your trip: 10
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1 KOVALAM
Best for beaches
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This working fishing town has
a wealth of beautiful stretches
of sand – from animated Hawa
Beach to the exclusive and
serene Surya Samudra.
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Kovalam is a short drive from Trivandrum International Airport
map illustration: STUART KOLAKOVIC
Take in the former rice and
spice routes on board a
converted kettuvallam, and
stop off along the way to
sample palm wine, or ‘toddy’.
Kovalam
Best for beaches
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All good Indian stories start with a queen.
In the princely days before Independence,
Kovalam’s story starred a quiet fishing
beach, an unassuming maharani (queen)
who found the area pleasing and a clifftop
palace built for her to while away the
monsoon. Years later, locals followed the
queen’s lead, with picnics, and hippies
weren’t far behind. Now paths run
through palm-tree groves to guesthouses,
beachfront restaurants serve up the
morning haul and beach-umbrella wallahs
offer shade and lounge chairs.
Hawa Beach, near the candy-stripe
lighthouse on the headland, may be the
liveliest. Here, little boys slurp ice lollies
from the ice-cream rickshaw, toddlers
sit in their underwear at the water’s
edge and teenage girls dressed in salwar
kameezes (traditional outfits of tunic and
trousers) hold hands in the water, giggling
and shrieking with every wave. Further
down the beach, two best friends sit apart
from their software engineer colleagues
playing cricket, sifting the sand through
their hands as they talk about their
new husbands and their lives back
in Trivandrum.
Jeffy Paulose, one of Kovalam’s
lifeguards, points to the fully clothed
beachgoers in inch-deep water nearby:
‘We Indians don’t study swimming
in school, so everyone stays close to
shore,’ he says. The beach here has
such a communal feel that lifesaving
quickly becomes a group activity. ‘One
person starts flailing,’ says Jeffy with
a good-natured chortle. ‘We go to help,
then everyone comes to help, and then
everyone’s flailing.’
Kovalam is also a working beach town
with an ancient fishing culture. At Poovar
Beach, which is located a mile or two
from Hawa, lights from hundreds of boats
blink on the horizon at dawn, while men
hike up their lunghis (garments similar
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KERALA
to sarongs) to sit and wait for the work
to come in. When the colourfully striped
boats arrive, teams of men pull them in,
along with the gargantuan nets, singing
as they do so. Everything from catching,
hauling, cooking and selling fish here
involves the whole family; most people
start young, learning from their parents,
and continue the job for life.
It’s difficult to imagine just how close
these families are to the sea. However,
you can see it on the faces of elderly men
who, too old to work, still come to Poovar
each morning, just to be near the water.
FURTHER INFORMATION
l Get started with kovalam.com.
WHERE TO EAT
l Local families make the trip to Trivandrum for
Ariya Nivaas, which serves an exquisite vegetarian
thali – an all-you-can-eat meal with rice and several
small dishes, sides and soups to go with it – in
simple surrounds (thalis 80p; Aristo Junction,
Manorama Road; 00 91 471 2330 789).
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP
Teenage girls in salwar
kameezes giggle, arm in
arm, in the sea; a blowfish
washed ashore; fishermen,
at work and at rest, on
Poovar Beach; the beach’s
lively fish market
A canoe drifts along
the calm backwaters
in the early morning
haze in Alappuzha
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Alappuzha
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Best for backwaters
Miles into your trip: 109
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The three-hour drive north from Kovalam follows the
Trivandrum Bypass Road and the NH 47
On a quiet night, the joints in the rice
barge houseboat’s bamboo frame creak
with the current and a crowd of stars
shines on the upper deck. Every now and
then the waves lap a little faster on the
side of the boat as fishermen in a dugout
canoe pass by. Wind blows through the
palm and banana trees onshore, tapping
and clicking the leaves together, while
the sound of chanting floats over from
a far-off Hindu temple.
Keralans never used these rice barges as
houseboats – much less those with luxury
bedrooms and personal chefs. Known as
kettuvallams, the traditional barges were
first built to bring rice and spices to Kochi
via 560 miles of interconnected backwater
rivers, canals and lagoons. Roads made
them obsolete, but visitors later realised
what a nice ride they were.
A lot has changed here, but women still
wash dishes and laundry by the water’s
edge then hang the wet clothes over
twig fences to dry. Kids still play in the
water and farmers herd ducklings to feed
in paddy fields. Men punt small boats
weighed down with cargo or anchor them
and dive for mussels. And ‘toddy tappers’
glide along the water early each morning
to palm trees along the shore, which
they milk for sap used to make Kerala’s
favourite traditional drink: palm wine.
Biju Puthenpurayal has tapped palm
wine – the aforementioned ‘toddy’ – for
20 years. Tapping requires a machete,
a deer bone, a clay pot and lots of skill
– all while at the top of a palm tree.
‘Toddy’s good for you,’ he says, ‘so I have
some every day. Even kids drink it – just
a tiny bit with dried fruit.’
Biju taps his trees in the morning and
takes the product to the government
shops; the wine, which tastes vaguely
of coconut and bread, gets stronger as
the day wears on. It’s a good living, but
he never knows what kind of yield he’s
going to get: ‘Each tree behaves a little
differently – just like human beings.’
FURTHER INFORMATION
l Browse backwater routes and a history of the
Alappuzha area at alappuzha.com.
WHERE TO EAT
l At the Raheem Residency, a charming heritage
hotel on Alappuzha’s beach, rooftop restaurant
Chakara serves up subtly spiced dishes that
combine Keralan and European flavours (mains
from £9; raheemresidency.com).
where to stay
Muthoot
Backwater Cruises
Muthoot’s houseboats have comfortable
rooms that feel like they could be on land –
if it weren’t for the 360-degree water views
through their wide, open windows. Some
boats have upper-storey lounges that catch
the breeze as they meander along (from
£205; raxacollective.com).
where to stay
Surya Samudra
Private Retreats
The traditional cottages at Surya Samudra
have teak four-posters, modern ‘bath
gardens’ and heaps of charm, and are set in
expansive gardens. Many of them overlook
the resort’s crescent beach – regarded as
the best patch of sand in Kovalam (doubles
from £195; suryasamudra.com).
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Kerala
and settlers’ home countries were built to
hold it all in, while imports like Chinese
fishing nets, modified by the Portuguese,
took their place on Kochi’s riverfront.
Kochi is no longer an international
trading post of exotic goods and traders from
faraway lands, but the air remains thick
with history and the smells of cardamom,
pepper and ginger for sale in the spice shops
that still line the streets. The European-era
bungalows, with their terracotta roof tiles,
and butter-yellow or mint-green façades, are
still there, as are the waterfront spice
warehouses, St Francis CSI Church (India’s
oldest European church), Paradesi
Synagogue and Mattancherry Palace. And
as the sun goes down on River Road,
fishermen tidy up their Chinese nets,
coconut wallahs serve up the sweet water
from their carts, kids play with pinwheels
and women in bright saris sit on park
benches after their work is done, just as
they have for centuries.
FURTHER INFORMATION
l For more information, see ernakulam.com and
cochin.org. Read about the history of Jewish people
in Kerala at cochinsyn.com.
WHERE TO EAT
l The Old Courtyard does fine pasta and fish dishes,
its catches coming from the Chinese fishing nets
down the road (mains from £4; oldcourtyard.com).
LEFT Chinese fishing nets.
OPPOSITE, FROM TOP LEFT A local
man expertly balances a sack of
ginger; Reema Roby and Gumliel
Salem; St Francis CSI Church;
spices for sale on Bazaar Road
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Kochi
Best for history
Miles into your trip: 149
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Drive the NH 47, which runs parallel to the coast, north for
40 miles from Alappuzha to Kochi
‘When I was young, there was no-one here
in Jew Town who wasn’t a Jew,’ says Reema
Roby Salem who, with her husband
Gumliel, is among the 10 remaining Jews
in Kochi’s historic neighbourhood – the
aforementioned Jew Town, tucked away
in the Fort Kochi district. ‘Now, it’s like
Non-Jew Town!’ she laughs.
Once home to three synagogues and
thousands of Jewish people, Jew Town
will likely vanish after its mostly elderly
residents pass away. First the population
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was hit hard by Portuguese persecution in
the 16th century, then many fled to Israel in
1948. As Gumliel explains, ‘The birth of
Israel was the death of Jew Town.’
However, Kerala’s coast has had a strong
Jewish community since at least the first
century, and probably earlier. ‘The
maharajas,’ explains Reema Auntie, ‘were
very good to the Jews.’ The rajas and their
predecessors were good to a lot of people:
this stretch of coast has welcomed traders
and refugees for millennia, since the times
when places had names like Mesopotamia
and people went crazy for Kerala’s spices,
which seemed exotic, aphrodisiacal and, for
the Egyptians, suitable for mummification.
In any given century, the region teemed with
traders from around the world – Arabs,
Romans, Moors, Chinese and Portuguese,
among others. The stories they brought
home, of street bazaars overflowing with
spices, silk and gold, made this coast
world-famous. Warehouses, forts and
mansions in styles borrowed from traders’
where to stay
the brunton
BoatyaRD HOTEL
Set in a restored 19th-century shipbuilding
facility and full of colonial antiques and
reproductions, The Brunton Boatyard Hotel
is Kochi’s best place to stay for time travel.
Rooms, some with tall antique four-poster
beds, overlook the harbour and pool and
have balconies from which to imagine
ancient sea journeys (from £328; cghearth.
com/brunton_boatyard).
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Kerala
Munnar
Best for tea
Miles into your trip:236
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Drive the NH 49, which curls its way up Munnar’s hills for
87 miles due east from Kochi
In Munnar, the palm trees, sunny paddy
fields and lazily flowing waters of Kerala’s
plains give way to rushing waterfalls,
mountain forests and moody weather.
Roads are lined with pendulous white
flowers known as angels’ trumpets, and
tall trees draped in vines and mist host
Malabar squirrels. The overlapping hills
of tea plantations, which seem to go on
forever, are covered in an electric-green
carpet of bushes that look like fluffy clouds.
Munnar produces about 10 per cent
of the country’s tea, often served black,
its flavour subtle and nuanced. The
British made this area a summer retreat
before recognising its suitability for tea
production due to its weather, elevation
and terrain (hills must slant at 45 degrees,
among other things). With Tamil workers,
the British broke through the forest to plant
tea and lay a mountain rail line. More
than 100 years later, most plantations are
run by the Kanan Devan Hills Plantations
Company, a co-operative owned by 12,000
worker-shareholders including Lilly
Pushpam, a ‘tea plucker’.
‘We drink a lot of tea here,’ Lilly says.
‘It’s so cold, you have to!’ Her family’s
single-room apartment is in a long row of
houses, each a different shade of purple.
Like many tea workers here, Lilly’s family
is Tamil, and she started working when she
was just 12. Plucking involves removing
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only the buds and top two leaves of the
tree. ‘We like to harvest with our hands,’
she says, ‘but we have to use the shears,
which wears our shoulders out.’
Her best friend, Maria Packiam, who
works at the neighbourhood crèche,
objects: ‘Plucking is the best work! You
get water, electrical, medical, childcare!’
The two laugh and bicker before Lilly
serves the tea, sweet and served in little
glasses, which everyone savours for a few
minutes before getting back to work.
FURTHER INFORMATION
l Find tea, spices and history at munnar.com.
WHERE TO EAT
l The restaurant at Blackberry Hills, along Bison Valley
Road in Pothamedu, has Keralan and North Indian
dishes served with phulka – the traditional Keralan roti
(mains from £2; blackberryresorts.com).
ABOVE Lilly Pushpam and
Maria Packiam enjoy a
break from their day’s work.
OPPOSITE Tea pluckers
on the hills of Munnar
where to stay
Windermere Estate
The Windermere Estate is a family-owned
cardamom plantation perfectly situated
for trekking. Little paths wind through its
gardens, and most of the large rooms
and cottages have balconies overlooking
the Chithirapuram valley (from £98;
windermeremunnar.com).
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Wayanad
Best for wildlife
Miles into your trip: 466
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Backtrack towards Kochi, take the NH 17 for the long trip
north and head east into the woods on NH 212
ABOVE A Royal Bengal tiger
at Bandipur National Park.
BELOW A man of the Paniar
tribe works in a rice paddy.
OPPOSITE A gray langur, a
common sight in the area
When a sambar deer thinks it’s about to be
killed by a tiger, it makes a piercing noise
between a shriek and a burp. But this deer
is frozen as she stares at the Royal Bengal
slinking past dry shrubs nearby. She’s
lucky: the tiger is licking his chops, which
means he’s just eaten, and is now only
looking for a spot to take a nap.
Royal Bengal tigers are endangered and
many people visit India’s wildlife reserves
without spotting one. Yet their numbers
here have been steadily climbing since the
Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve was created in
1986. The sanctuary spills across Kerala,
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and has been
relatively successful in preserving the
area’s many endangered creatures.
Nilgiri comprises six protected areas,
from the forests of Wayanad Wildlife
Sanctuary, with its teak, sandalwood and
eucalyptus groves, to the dry meadows
of its Karnatakan neighbour, Bandipur
Kerala
National Park. It’s common to see peacocks,
families of spotted deer and gray langurs,
wild boar, monitor lizards, grey mongooses,
kaleidoscopically coloured birds, and some
of the reserve’s thousands of elephants.
Tiger and leopard sightings are for the
lucky, and only one black panther has been
spotted. The reserve was designed to create
a sustainable equilibrium between the
flora, fauna and local population, and more
than a million people live in this area.
NB ‘Kuttappan’ Sudesan, an ornithologist
and guide in Bandipur, grew up in an
indigenous community in Tamil Nadu’s
Mudumalai National Park. ‘When I was
a boy,’ he says, ‘my friends and I used to
kill birds and eat them.’ ‘We’d set traps
made with sticks.’ As he grew older,
learning about wildlife became more
interesting. ‘A director at a wildlife camp
I went to said we can’t live without birds
– they’re essential to our ecosystem – and
something changed in me. I just couldn’t
kill them anymore.’
He can replicate the calls of many birds,
but the tiger is his favourite animal: ‘I’ve
seen 68,’ he says. ‘The population is
increasing nicely. The reserve is working.’
FURTHER INFORMATION
l For information on wildlife and indigenous peoples,
see nilgiribiospherereserve.com. Sanctuaryasia.com
is good for information on Bandipur and Nagarhole.
WHERE TO EAT
l At the Tranquil resort, Western and Keralan dishes,
and coffee, are served buffet-style (see below).
Amy Karafin is an American writer,
editor and translator who lives in
Brooklyn, New York. She is the co-author
of Lonely Planet’s India guide.
where to stay
Tranquil
The Tree House at Tranquil has trunks
growing through it, birdsong all around,
engrossing treetop views from its
wraparound balcony and all the amenities.
Regular rooms have homey touches and a
communal porch for comparing the day’s
animal sightings (Tree House £249, doubles
from £192; tranquilresort.com). LP
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