A few days ago, Molly brought the turtle box on board a kettuvallam, a converted traditional river cargo boat, in which we cruised through Kerala’s emerald-green backwater canals. The boat vaguely resembled a 65-ft giant Lunar moth, with woven rattan wings jutting out from its canoe-shaped black-hulled body. As we began the overnight cruise, we lounged on a sumptuous daybed near the bow. A 25 hp motor put-putted us through narrow palm-fringed waterways, past shores where whole villages were conducting their evening ablutions and preparing dinners. As we floated past one bank-side village, a funeral was just ending and billows of pyre smoke floated up through the palm trees.
At sundown, the breeze died down and the crew hung kerosene lanterns from the boat’s woven rafters. After dining on Kerala specialties–chicken curry, vegetables with shredded coconut, fried plantains–we played chess, swapped books (Malcolm and Fraser are madly reading the Harry Potter books, Molly is reading The Constant Gardner by Le Carre, and I’m still stuck on Siddartha) and lazily lounged on the deck, hungry for any hint of a breeze. We anchored at 9:00 p.m. and nestled under our mosquito nets with the waves lapping at the boat.
The next morning we tied up at the dock of the Coconut Lagoon in Komarakom, deep in Kerala’s backwater country. In fact, you can reach the Coconut Lagoon only by boat. The hotel property is situated on an old coconut plantation guttered with narrow canals and dotted with bungalows.
It was then my plan get the children pets backfired. As we settled in our room, Molly searched for Thomas and found him, with a gasp, under his sunbathing rock. He was dead. For his final rites, we chose a traditional Hindu service, except instead of igniting Thomas, we floated him out to sea on a banana leaf garnished with a hibiscus flower.
Molly fell into a major funk while the rest of us enjoyed what the Coconut Lagoon had to offer. I signed up for an ayurvedic massage. Ayurveda means “study of prolonging life” and it originated in Kerala hundreds, even thousands, of years ago. First two lady masseuses drizzled copious amounts of warm scented oil infused with herbs all over me. They left no part undrizzled. Then they synchronized their movements to create a continuous wave of pressure up and down my body. They capped it off by lathering me with a warm mudpack of sandalwood and turmeric. I felt like I was ready to be baked in an oven at 350 degrees until done.
Our final destination in India was Kovalam, a gorgeous, palm-fringed beach on the Arabian Sea. We are seasoned beach goers and have pretty high expectations when it comes to the sand and the surf. We reached the Surya Samudra Beach Garden after a five-hour drive and immediately donned our bathing suits and plunged in the surf. “Ah, palm trees, the sign of luxury,” uttered Molly. Our cottage was perched on a bluff overlooking the milky turquoise waters. There are only 16 cottages on 20 acres so no package tour groups here. Our expectations were met instantly.
The next morning Molly, Fraser and I hired a fisherman on the beach to take us out on the high seas. His “catamaran” consisted of three planks of wood lashed together with hemp to form a sort of canoe. We didn’t really worry about falling out of the boat since we were constantly in the water as the sea gushed through the boat’s “seams.” I helped paddle with a bamboo branch that was split in half length-wise. Several hundred yards from the coast we joined other fishermen, and we all dived in with our masks on to check out the puffer fish, blue tang, snappers, and angelfish swimming amongst the rocks on the deep bottom. Molly was enamored with the comb jellies and Fraser kept trying to dive down as far as our guide, who was ripping mussels off the rocks and carrying them to the surface. Back on shore, he roasted our “catch” over a fire and served them to us on banana leaves. We have already marked this place as a Must Return.
We now end our whirlwind trip of India. We have spent six weeks here and never more than two nights in one place. At first Malcolm and I felt that we had caved slightly by using a travel agent to help us plan part of our Indian itinerary, but in retrospect we are thrilled that we hooked up with Dinesh Bashkar and Utpal Dhar at The Great India Tour Company, Ltd. (http://www.gitctours.com). Dinesh and Utpal turned around our requests within hours, switched us out of hotels we hated and into those we loved, changed our itinerary no matter how inconvenient to them, and enabled us to see parts of India we would otherwise not have seen. Now it’s off to Sri Lanka, hopefully with Sherbert, for more beaches and palm trees.
