South India: Kerala: Green Palm Homes, Part I

Green Palm Homes
Western Chennamkary PO
Allepey, Kerala
community.greenpalms@gmail.com
greenpalms@sify.com



Although we initially planned to rent a houseboat, which is the tourist thing to do in Kerala, we were intrigued with the prospect of a homestay. As opposed to being isolated in your own boat, a homestay involves interacting with the locals and getting a closer view of how they live.

Green Palm Homes was highly recommended by our guidebook. To set up our stay, I contacted Thomas, a bona fide Keralan who provides home stays in Chennamkary. He instructed us to take ferry#50 from Allepey, which leaves at 1pm. He instructed us to get off "at the third church on the left."

Ferry interior. No, the engine was not really too loud. And yes, it was a very local scene. Right away, we knew we made the right choice.

After leaving the town proper, the ferry made pretty frequent stops on either side of the waterways. The backwaters are just unbelievably pretty, with coconut trees and tiny neat houses lining the banks. Beyond the houses were rice paddies.

The backwaters, as we later learned, were carved out by the locals to help with irrigation of the fields. Today, the backwaters are still a major artery for most of the villages, which are not accessible by roads.

Good thing we did not miss our stop! The drifting through the waters was just too relaxing, we were falling asleep!

Thomas' family has been running their homestay for the last twenty years or so. They were very warm and welcoming. Thomas comes from a line of rice farmers.

Thomas, his wife Lila, and daughters Anna and Annina pose with us.

To me, this homestay was the best part of the trip. We stayed with Thomas' family for three nights and learned a lot from them.

Lila made sure that we were always well-fed. She helped Thomas run the homestay. Most mornings, we would see her helping Anna with her homework. She would explain the local customs to us, and ask us questions about life back home. Both Anna and Annina were such smart and cute little girls. They gave us great language lessons in Malaylam, the dialect here in Kerala. In return, we showed then some games and sleight-of-hand tricks, which they really liked.

The experience definitely beats staying in a houseboat!

Typical houseboat. At first glance, they look very pretty, with the woven shell and cute windows. It is safe to say that only tourists rent them. Thomas has seen these boats proliferate over the past few years; during our stay, it was not uncommon to see four or five of them in a row, and usually with just two tourists renting them! I guess it fulfills some "Queen of the Nile"-type fantasies, because you get a cook and a guide with you.

However,these babies have diesel generators to run the ac, satellite tv and outdoor speakers run on diesel. All on a boat that is as big as a bus. I don't know, but there seems to be something with this deliberate flaunting of tourists in a relatively poor country. (anyway, enough pontificating)

View from our room. When dawn broke, we usually heard songbirds first. Then the ferry guy starts his day around 6 am shuttling passengers across the river. We thought he was really cool, because all he did the whole day was paddle across and back. However, when we went on his canoe, he charged us ten rupees (instead of four)!!! Outrageous! ... you haven't seen the last from us, ferry man!

On our first day, DJKung and I joined another couple for a morning walk around the village. Thomas, who served as our guide, pointed out the local flora and fauna. Some of the local plants were the same tropical plants you find in southeast asia (guavas, langka, hibiscus, betel nut palm). Kerala also has a nice variety of birds. We even saw the kingfisher, Kerala's official bird! It was a very bright blue color, but was kinda tiny.

Despite the presence of cable tv and electricity, Chennamkary is still a pretty rural and quiet village. Some of the locals we encountered on our walk were just doing their daily ablutions, washing dishes at the river, or otherwise on their way to school/work on the mainland. Others were husking coconuts, another cash crop. We were also lucky to see a coconut toddy farmer at his craft. (Toddy is the local moonshine made from the sap of the coconut flower.)

Canoe in progress. Teak was originally used, but a different wood is used now due to the decimation of teak trees. I think they use breadfruit wood. The planks of wood are held together by sap.


Banana heart, used in some Keralan dishes.

One of the side canals. This one is clogged with water hyacinth, a recent scourge of the Keralan backwaters. Thomas pointed out that both nonmotorized and motorized canoes have a difficult, if not impossible, time going though these side canals. Further, these aquatic plants deplete the oxygen in the water, which kills the fishes. He predicted that the little canals like these would probably just silt over.

I took a picture of this mechanical mud digger. Thomas explained that the dikes of the backwaters are all manmade. Every five years, the dikes have to be rebuilt due to erosion. The task of this is left to the muddiggers, which are a Keralan caste. Basically, they go to the middle part of the waterways and dig up the mud by hand with metal basins. This mud is used to patch up eroded areas and reinforce the dikes.

Then, these newfangled machines came about that could dig mud much faster. However, they also started causing mudslides. This one looked abandoned to me, although I still did see some muddiggers going about their job.

Kerala was pretty diverse in terms of religion. Thomas stated that Syrians first came around1400s and brought Christianity to the area. We saw a couple of Christian churches, some snake-god temples in peoples' backyards, and some Buddhist and Hindu temples as well. Some of the temples were quite old, that they were below the water level and frequently flooded.

We had a good three-hour walk that morning. We stopped at Thomas' aunt's house for a proper Keralan breakfast---- steamed rice cakes (idlis) with crispy papadum and curry sauce. Also some masala chai and these scrumptious banana leaf-wrapped steamed rice patties with coconut and jaggery (rice palm sugar) filling.

Thomas' aunt's house. This is the traditional style house, circa early 1900.

The next two pictures were taken on a separate village hike. Church services just finished, and people were on their way home.