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.

South India: Kerala: SAS Restaurant

SAS Restaurant
Across from Alleppey Jetty
Alapphuzha, Kerala



One ferry ride (back to the mainland from Fort Cochi) and one harrowing bus trip later we made it to Alapphuzha (Alleppey) to catch yet another ferry to Chennamkary. We missed our 1pm ferry and breakfast at Rossitta seemed like a long time ago. We ducked into SAS Restaurant across the jetty for lunch.



SAS looked like your average place by the bus stations around here. Slightly dim, slightly grubby, and definitely not your typical western franchise.



It seemed that everyone was getting the fish thali, so I promptly ordered one. Pretty much just locals were eating at the time, and maybe one other tourist besides us, so I was confident that the food here was good.

Fish thali. It came with some sides--- yogurt, lentil in masala sauce, shredded cabbage, coconut-tomato sauce, some salty pickles. Naturally, I ate with my washed hands and tried hard to use only the right hand (which is the traditional Filipino way of eating, btw). The food was seriously good, and I received seconds of everything without even asking! This thali felt like the real deal--- a lot of different spices and textures. I am not sure what the fish was, but it was small and bony.

My dish was so good, I completely neglected to take a picture of DJKung's chicken fried rice. He did not say anything while he was eating, so I thought he was really unhappy with it. Plus, he had just one bowl, instead of unlimited seconds, like mine.

But when I tried it... I could not believe how they had Hong Kong style fried rice down so well!!! It had the chinese sausage taste and the perfect wok sear flawlessly. Later on, I read in our guidebook that Chinese food is quite popular among Indians due to centuries of trade, so authentic Chinese is not hard to find.

Oh, and I think this is possibly the cheapest meal we've had the entire trip. The fish thali was 25 rupees and the fried rice, 60 rupees!

After lunch, we waited at the jetty for our ferry to Chennamkary.

South India: Kerala: Rossitta Wood Castle

Rossitta Wood Castle
1/334 Bishop Joseph Kureethara Road
Fort Kochi, Cochin 682-001, Kerala, South India
http://www.rossittawoodcastle.com/

I found this place from http://www.indiamike.com/, one of the better India travel forums out there. Rossitta appealed to me because it looked soo cute, in a Lord-of-the-Rings-shire kind of way.

In truth, it looked a bit darker and older compared to their web page. It is an old building, with lots of wood, and it is easy to imagine that it was a private house from back then. It has a nice-sized ballroom on the second floor that doubled as an art gallery for spooky yoga-inspired paintings.

The courtyard, which is the hotel's best feature, is really just picture-perfect, with these fat wood columns, lots of flowers, and bright colors everywhere.

We picked one of the rooms overlooking the courtyard. As DJKung and I have decided that we were prepared to pamper ourselves (none of that rough backpacking business!), we of course had satellite tv, ac AND our own bathroom.

The room at the top left was ours, so we could hang out at the balcony. Because of the area, however, there were a lot of mosquitoes at night.

Fresh squeezed pineapple juice and a hot pot of coffee is the best way to start the day! (I think the local paper's headline was about the meltdown going on in Pakistan.)

Keralan breakfast. Roti filled with curried potatoes, onions and coconut meal. Scrumptious.

Rossitta was a great location for sightseeing around Fort Cochin. The area is chock-full of old buildings and churches (and of course the fort) dating back to Portuguese times. The island is also home to these beautiful gigantic trees with wide, wide canopies.

The Chinese fishing nets at Cochin are also a popular tourist attraction. These go way back to 1400. The contraption is pretty huge, and basically works with weights on one end that the fisherman use for raising and lowering the nets.

Chinese fishing nets in background. The catch was rather poor when we visited. There are also several fishmongers lining the seafront, and several of them can cook your selections (fish, squid, prawns, shellfish) too!

South India trip: Kerala: Lotus Restaurant

Lotus Restaurant
Located at the courtyard of Rossitta Wood Castle

We were so beat after our transAtlantic, transArabian flight. After clearing customs in Mumbai, we were off on another flight, this one to the province of Kerala (South Mumbai). From Kochi airport, it was an hour-and-a half cab ride to the island of Fort Cochin.

So on our first night, for our first real meal (excluding airport snacks), we decided on Lotus Restaurant, which is also run by our hotel, Rossitta Wood Castle. As the waterfront/fishing area was a mere two blocks away, we were guaranteed superfresh seafood. After taking our order, the cook went off and shortly returned with the fresh catch of the day.

Pan-grilled calamari, with boiled veggies and french fries. You could taste the squid ink too. Yum.

Fish molly. They had kingfish this day. It is a Keralan specialty, where the seafood is cooked in a coconut curry sauce. The sauce was rather thin and could have used more spice. OVerall, it went great with the chapati, which we ordered separately.

Final bill. The USD exchange rate is roughly 50 rupees to the dollar.