There's an elephant at the bottom of the garden...

Kerala, Christmas and New Year

Since Christmas Day when the intrepid Penninks arrived through snow and fog, we were holidaying in steamy Kerala en famille.  Kerala is very lush and tropical and frankly sweaty, swarming with mosquitoes avid for my blood despite a thick coating of DEET. 

We stayed a couple of days in Fort Cochin, then a period in a homestay in a backwater village and then ended up on the beach for New Year.  Penninks now homeward-bound  and we are in Kumily, up on the edge of the Western Ghats (climate just about perfect from my point of view – I definitely should have been a tea planter’s memsahib), facing eastwards for the next leg of the adventure...

M: The Penninks did arrive on time and safe and sound too.  I have had a lovely time with Eva and I dearly wish she and Sam were still here.  I loved showing Eva the new culture of India such as drinking roadside chai with her and George. 

The Indian Coffee House in Ernakulam was much nicer than the one in Delhi – the waiters wore fancy turbans and let us try them on and we saw dolphins on the ferry back to Fort Cochin. 

After that it was lovely to retreat to the calm back waters of Kerala.  At George Kutty’s home stay we tried washing our clothes in the river much to the amusement of the local women.   We ate appam (a doughy crumpet like pancake) for breakfast, and river fish stew for supper.  Sam amazingly managed to eat eight puri (a puffed up deep fried chapati); of course I wasn’t far behind at six!  One afternoon at sunset we all hopped into a wobbly canoe and went for a tour of the island and paddy fields on the river. 

Of course, once we arrived at the beach both of those places were thrown aside in my affection, as we dived into the huge breakers of the Indian Ocean.  Unpredictable Ganesh rockets and roman candles flew up into the air on New Year’s Eve, nearly hitting the toddy man in the palm tree, but not quite.
Wolfmum:  Memories of the Backwaters: kingfishers, river snakes, fruit bats, white egrets and pond-herons in the paddy field after it had been flooded, L ‘running away’ (she did take a bottle of water so at least we’ve taught her something), M determined to climb ever higher up palm trees, W loving the bumpy ride on the pink village bus in and out of town, the village temple lit up with coconut oil lamps and a lamp-lit procession through the village, walking to the local ferry stop and travelling by ferry across the lake on the way to the beach… Everything very low key and quiet in contrast to our city experiences.

The beach (Arakel, near Mararikulam) was very  undeveloped  - miles and miles of sand and seashell, with acres of drying, stinky sardines and fishermen playing cards under the palm trees with no beach umbrellas, soft drinks or ice-cream vendors or other concessions to tourist needs (where were the inflatable sharks, the buckets and spades, the pina coladas?).  Watching the boats come in and out and preventing W from getting too irate with the local boys (he’s no longer taking so kindly to being called a ‘baby’) were the only diversions.  Swimming a little alarming sometimes with children plunging into the big surf (sadly no surf boards) and currents – the mums counting bobbing heads in and out of waves…We contrived a little shade with sticks and sarongs but otherwise had to retreat to the homestay through the coconut grove and over the stinky swamp (across a wobbly, felled bamboo tree trunk) and the hammocks there.

Probably the biggest highlight for the children was the arrival of a working elephant (Ganeshan) who walked into the garden one morning (cunningly facilitated by George, big thank you!) and stayed for the next day and night, knocking down a few unwanted palm trees, eating his way through a significant quantity of vegetation and taking the children on a bareback ride through the swamp and down to the beach.  Definitely the stuff dreams are made of.  I grew quite accustomed to the elephant at the bottom of the garden.

L: (entry written a couple of days ago whilst still at the beach) Today we rid on a elephant it was very routh. The elephant was very bumpy. Wilf’s just hert  himself in the sand. We are by the sea and we are enjoying  ourselves. Right now an elephant is grazeing in the gardon and eating things. We saw the elephant push down a tree. Theres still mery Christmas sighns up here. Well happy new year everyone. We just had lunch in the mosteeto neted place. We are going to do beach olimpics with the peninks.

Wolfmum:  Sam is the Champion of the World!  Big respect!  Sadly I think the WolfGang offered little sporting challenge to the Penninks, our prowess in coconut hurling, flipflop retrieval and family relay being truly unremarkable…

I had a Ayurvedic facial done by Meeni – which was funny as it was spectated by the children and involved breast massage (oh yes), a fruity face mask and cucumber eye patches, a lot of fuss about flies (actually a massing of winged ants) and eventual rinsing under the outdoor standpipe.  But I look 20 years younger or a bit cleaner at the very least.

L decided her long hair was too hot and boring to brush, so she took advantage of the barber who’d come to cut boys’ hair under the palm trees.  She now has a very short bob and fringe and looks…lovely and even cheekier than usual.  However, it does appear to have calmed her down a bit. There had been a surfeit of upset and complaint and frustration (related perhaps to envy at M having a friend here?).  So haircut plus increased adult attention and a project (writing her own travel guide) seem to have improved things.

And I am Kali, destroyer of toilets!  On the last night I crept in to the loo which started creaking ominously sufficient to bring Wolfdad running in, just in time to observe the high calamity of the toilet collapsing off the wall with spurting sewage, flooding everywhere until we summoned help and switched the water supply off.  The children calmly slept through, while the WolfPs tried to stop laughing too loudly, and we got up the next morning to leave the mess behind us…

Thank you Penninks for taking the India Challenge – we hope you had some sort of holiday and it was worth the long-haul.  George – thanks for the organisation and planning and your general wonderfulness. And thank you Adrian for the adult movie evenings (L banned us: ‘I forbid you from watching films and drinking beer’).  And Sam for being W’s God – his language has been changed forever (‘Cool move, mum!’, ‘Ninja!’, ‘Cheesecake!’, ‘Hello Chappies!’, ‘That’s lush man!’) And Eva, just for being M’s bestest friend.