The backwaters of Kerala
Alistair Taylor-YoungCruise through the backwaters in Kerala
Calm, cool and green: it's not how you imagine India to be. A meandering voyage through the backwaters of Kerala is a wonderful way to see the subcontinent, says Robert McCrum, who sails in style into 'God's Own Country'. Photographs by Alistair Taylor-Young.
In the glossy brochures, Kerala is 'God's Own Country'. The myth of the place is that it surfaced from the Indian Ocean at the dawn of creation whereupon Lord Parashurama 'threw his axe' to carve out its distinctive identity. Or something.
Anyway, once you get there you find a subtropical spot that's rather more heavenly than most of the Almighty's regular projects. This is one He can be proud of. Kerala, which means 'land of coconuts', might just be the best holiday destination in all India. It's a little piece of paradise, a jungly green maze of waterways and rice paddies on the dusty western flank of the subcontinent.
On the Emirates flight to Kochi, I thought I should slip into the Indian groove by reading Charles Allen's excellent Kipling Sahib. As it turned out, the India of Kim - the parched, poverty-stricken north - is a world away from Kerala.
Pictured: bathing in a lily pond just outside Kochi
Alistair Taylor-YoungFort Cochin
The city of Kochi is a kind of archipelago, scattered across a number of islands and promontories linked by bridges and ferry services. (Almost all the guides to the region make the obvious comparison with Venice, though Kochi and its waterways has none of the creepy menace we associate with La Serenissima.)
When you arrive in the city's old town, Fort Cochin, you step into a sleepy, humid, provincial old port, long ago occupied by the Dutch and the Portuguese, which is more reminiscent of the Caribbean than India. The dark mahogany of the Old Harbour Hotel, with its polished wooden floors and slow tropical fans, brings back memories of Barbados and Jamaica. Unlike the West Indies, however, Fort Cochin is steeped in the past, and positively stagnant with history. The old town, with its formerly British fort, is a fascinating palimpsest of many centuries. The accumulation of religious and imperial conquest leaves Kerala about 50 per cent Hindu, with the balance divided more or less equally between Christian and Muslim.
The Hindu influence is not strong. The local language is Malayalam and the people are proud of their linguistic identity and their high literacy rate. Susan, my guide, took me on a tour of the sights: the church of St Francis, which boasts the tomb of Vasco da Gama; the ancient synagogue in Jew Town, the local markets - which specialise in spices, gorgeous silks, silver jewellery, teakwood carvings and any amount of carpets - and the one-time Maharajah's rather poky palace.
Pictured: the famous Chinese fishing nets at Fort Cochin
Alistair Taylor-YoungKochi, Kerala
The Kerala of the Raj is long gone, and mostly forgotten. In fact, the state has been run by Indian communists since 1957. Unlike the Bengali communists of Kolkata, their administration appears to have been tolerant, sensible and deeply beneficial to the people: the health, prosperity and education of the Kerala people is the envy of India.
So Kochi is a pleasant place to spend a couple of slow days, an agreeable stopover. The atmosphere is relaxed, friendly and benign, with none of the extremes of rich and poor you find in the north. On this trip, Kochi is a happy detour. I have come here to sample that supreme Keralan holiday experience, a luxury cruise down its celebrated backwaters.
Pictured: Old Harbour Hotel in Fort Cochin
Alistair Taylor-YoungOberoi Motor Vessel Vrinda cruise
For many travellers, put the the words 'cruise', 'boat' and 'holiday' into the same sentence and you have all the ingredients of a nautical nightmare. The promotional photograph of the Oberoi Motor Vessel Vrinda hardly promises well, either. Never mind its provenance as a floating hotel; it has the lines of a convict hulk or, worse, one of those refugee wrecks beached on the coast of Somalia that show up on the evening news as a horrifying illustration of Near-Eastern piracy. It was with such thoughts in mind that I set out from Kochi to make my rendezvous with the Vrinda.
The vessel that was to be my home for almost a week was moored at a private dock on the edge of shimmering water, Lake Vembanad, an hour's drive from Kochi. At first glance, it was cosier and smaller than the photographs had suggested: a floating pavilion, not a hulk. Half of the dozen or so passengers (the boat sleeps 16) were already on board. As a new arrival, you have to run the gamut not only of your fellow tourists' curiosity, but also the astonishing hospitality of the Vrinda's uniformed staff.
Pictured: a view from the Oberoi MV Vrinda*, moored at the pier on Lake Vembanad, Kerala*
Alistair Taylor-YoungCruising the backwaters near Karumadi
As part of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, a group renowned for its incomparable command of luxury, the Vrinda cruise provides a level of service that is quasi-colonial in its tireless attention to personal comfort. Approach a door and someone jumps forward to ease it open. Look casually at the bar at the far end of the spacious dining area on the upper deck, and two waiters will offer you a choice of drinks. Work up the mildest perspiration in the midday sun, and you are handed a cold towel.
Below decks, in the well-appointed cabins opening off the long, cool corridor that runs along the spine of the ship, you can enjoy comfortable privacy with world-class room service. So spookily alert is the staff to our needs that, as one guest put it, 'there must be a microphone in every bread basket'. Any worries that life afloat on the Kerala backwaters might turn out to be, shall we say, a trifle primitive, even rugged, were swiftly dispelled.
The final obstacle to a week of idyllic luxury is the lottery of one's fellow passengers. Like it or loathe it, we were all going to be together in close proximity for three meals a day and a packed programme of entertainment. Could it be done?
Pictured: cruising the backwaters near Karumadi, in the district of Alappuzha
Alistair Taylor-YoungOn the backwaters of Kerala
At first, still moored at the dock, there was an inevitable period of mutual sizing-up to endure. The omens were good. By the close of the first evening I had begun to make friends with a semi-retired couple from New Jersey and a travel agent from Seattle escaping the pressure of his 'office, friends and family'.
Our party also included two melancholy Germans who seemed immersed in some kind of Mitteleuropean existential crisis, and what I decided must be a party of dentists, a mixed foursome, from the Midwest: Cedar Rapids, say, or Minneapolis-Saint Paul. I was the solitary Brit.
Preliminary conversations had established that the New Jersey duo were firm Democrats, CNN addicts fearful of encountering die-hard Republicans. Mr and Mrs New Jersey and I formed a first-night alliance and so, after a quayside demonstration of Mohiniattam, a form of classical Kerala dance which translates as the 'Dance of the Enchantress', we took our dinner and retired to our cabins, ready for the morning's voyage across the shining waters of Lake Vembanad, which lovers of literature will know as the setting for Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things.
Pictured: a girl carrying a water pitcher in the fields near Karumadi
Alistair Taylor-YoungOn the river near Kalloorkad, Kerala
So, next day, on waking, I raised the blinds to watch the lake sliding at eye level past my picture window. To lie in a comfortable bed and feel the boat, on which you have passed the night, pull slowly away from the quay, gathering speed for a stately cruise into the rising sun, is one of many moments of sheer luxury supplied by the Vrinda.
There were fishermen on the lake, silhouetted against the silver water, stick figures with bamboo poles clustering together for company. It's hard work: boys dive into the murky water to harvest shellfish from the lake bed. Here the water is perhaps 10 metres deep (the Vrinda draws about six metres), grey, sluggish and clogged with floating weed, green islands of thick, matted vegetation through which the captain must navigate. In fact, our channel was marked by a series of buoys, but the further we sailed onto the lake, the more profound the traveller's disorientation. Where's north? Where's south? Where are we? Does it matter? What time is it? Who cares?
Pictured: navigating the backwaters near the village of Kalloorkad
Alistair Taylor-YoungThe riverbank near Kalloorkad
We were all surrendering to the magic of Kerala. After an hour or so of steady sailing, during which breakfast (fresh fruits, toast, coffee, pancakes) was served, we steered into a new waterway, a grand canal running between rice paddies, the staple of the local economy, with long vistas of local water-traffic plying to and fro between palm-fringed river banks.
The unique attraction of the cruise became clear. The Vrinda sailed majestically past Keralan everyday life, like a waterborne voyeur. From onboard we were shameless spectators. How could we not be? Everything seems to happen on the riverbank: boys fishing, children swimming, men and women chatting by the waterside. One woman washed dishes, another shampooed her hair in the lake water, then tied it up in a coloured cloth, indifferent to our curiosity. Someone else was doing laundry. A fishmonger pedalled past uttering his tradesman's cry. Existence here seems simple and quite primitive, though not at all squalid.
Pictured: washing clothes near Kalloorkad
Alistair Taylor-YoungKalloorkad, Kerala
The little riverbank houses, some built from brick, others from coconut palm, are tidy and well cared for. People pass to and fro up and down the towpath on bicycles. Here and there you might see a bright red moped, or even a shiny new motorbike, a symbol of prosperity. The real sign of success is to have a cow tethered in your front yard. Hindus believe your day is doubly blessed if your first view, on waking, is a cow. 'Yes, a real cow,' joked our guide, in questionable taste, 'not your wife.'
Cruising down a canal in Alappuzha, the Vrinda is the queen of the backwaters. A succession of smaller vessels, converted rice boats, come down the canal towards us. With their top-heavy rattan superstructures roped together with coir bindings, black prows and Chinese junk-style poops, they look like water beetles.
Pictured: a shop in Kalloorkad, Kerala
Alistair Taylor-YoungLake Vembanad, Kerala
Watching these improbable vessels, I found a phrase from Edward Lear popping into my head: 'They went to sea in a sieve, they did/In a sieve they went to sea.' For the rest of our voyage on the Vrinda I found it hard to shake off the thought that we were crossing a page from one of Lear's oriental journals. 'Far and few, far and few/Are the lands where the Jumblies live…' Like all canals, this one is host to every conceivable kind of vessel. Elsewhere off the stream you can see snake boats - traditional racing vessels - moored in overgrown creeks.
On the Vrinda, we were indeed a privileged class of Jumbly. Life on board was a succession of delicious meals prepared by our chef and onboard host, the incomparable Robin Batra and his team. As we settled into our routine, we all agreed that, if the heat and dust of the subcontinent is too gruelling a prospect, then seeing India from the water makes a wonderful alternative.
Pictured: a view from the Oberoi MV Vrinda, moored at the pier on Lake Vembanad
Alistair Taylor-YoungDining onboard MV Vrinda
Speculating about how best to exploit the opportunities of the MV Vrinda and chef Robin's astounding cuisine, someone said they thought this could be the perfect honeymoon. It's true. If you wanted day and night privacy in your cabin, exchanging intimate disclosures for the views of Kerala life, there would be nothing to stop you. Certainly not the crew who, in addition to being obsessively helpful, are also fantastically discreet. Anyway, as it happened, our party was long beyond most honeymoon thoughts, being distinctly middle-aged.
By day two we were all friends, a dedicated tourist unit, eager for experience. The gloomy Germans had cheered up and were becoming almost garrulous. The travel agent was everyone's favourite, while Mr and Mrs New Jersey were visibly relieved to discover that the other Americans on board were also Democrats, and that it was safe to declare enthusiasm for Obama. And I had learned that the 'four dentists' from the Midwest were actually a highly sophisticated group of East Coasters from New York and Washington DC, a mixed party of friends with a wide experience of the world, a taste for exotic travel and a lively interest in the arts.
Pictured: a ginger warehouse in Jew Town, Kochi
Alistair Taylor-YoungBackwaters villages in Kerala
So the day's cruise progressed, punctuated by visits to a local church, a school, a covered market and a traditional boatyard. At about five o'clock as we left the network of waterways and returned to the lake, the crew opened up the rooftop sundeck that ran along the length of the Vrinda, and some of us went up to see the sun sink into the tropical dusk.
At sunset, the distant line of coconuts took on a jungly silhouette. Suddenly it was cooler and there was the sound of music from the shadowy depths of the forest. Edward Lear had morphed into Joseph Conrad. We reached our mooring, and cocktail hour was followed by a display of traditional dancing in full make-up and costume, enacting scenes from the Ramayana, the ancient Sanskrit epic. It was the last night of Diwali, and Robin came down from his galley to light a trail of candles around the boat, a little touch of Indian magic to close a magical day.
Pictured: a man threading jasmine flowers into garlands in Fort Cochin
Alistair Taylor-YoungVillages on the backwaters
The next two days, the heart of the cruise, were a kaleidoscope of brightly coloured impressions: more daytime cruising down the waterways of Kerala, afternoon visits to local temples and communities, a local sculptor's studio and a rice farm; and in the evening, performances of traditional music and dance inspired by tales from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, another Sanskrit epic. On our last evening, Robin Batra prepared a traditional Keralan gourmet dinner of such magnificence that all the Americans were prompted to beg him to open a restaurant in Manhattan. Perhaps he will. His enigmatic smile says he is a man with plenty of inner self-confidence, and possibly a plan. For the moment, his presence on board the Vrinda guarantees a special level of luxury on the backwater cruise.
Pictured: at a sculptor's studio on an afternoon excursion in Kerala
Alistair Taylor-YoungMarari Beach
To leave the tranquillity of the water and drive back to Kochi in a minibus was a dislocating return to Indian normality. The bus bumped unevenly down a country road fringed with mango, fica trees, palms and bamboo. Monkeys chattered in the background. A twist in the road, and suddenly there was a view of the sea, and a strip of white sand.
We paused for lunch at A Beach Symphony, an oasis of European-style serenity overlooking Marari Beach, run by Jan Arryn and his wife Christel, seasoned hoteliers from Belgium. And then we were off again, through the coconuts back to the muddy walls and fishing nets of Kochi. So it was only as we prepared to leave that we realised that the backwaters of Kerala are really a kind of antechamber to a coastal paradise - but that's another journey.
Pictured: decorated shop doors in Kalloorkad, Kerala
Alistair Taylor-YoungTravel information for Kerala
WHERE TO STAY Old Harbour Hotel, Fort Cochin (00 91 484 221 8006; www.oldharbourhotel.com). Doubles from about £85 A Beach Symphony, Marari Beach (www.abeachsymphony.com). Cottages from £110 Marari Beach Resort (www.cghearth.com). Cottages from £80
GETTING THERE Audley Travel (01993 838355; www.audleytravel.com) offers a week's trip to Kerala including two nights at the Old Harbour Hotel, Kochi, two at Marari Beach Resort and three onboard Oberoi Motor Vessel Vrinda, from £2,240 per person, full board, including return flights from the UK with Emirates, all day trips and transfers.Air India (www.airindia.com) flies to Kochi from Heathrow via Mumbai; Emirates (www.emirates.com) flies via Dubai.
WHEN TO GO Kerala is most pleasant from November to March. Avoid monsoon season (May to September).
Pictured: the village of Karumadi, Kerala. Published in Condé Nast Traveller September 2010
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