VIZHINJAM (India): The small beach at the southern end of Vizhinjam is wild and beautiful. The surf rolls in too fast for most swimmers — though I see one local man diving for shellfish. Well away from the main road and surrounded by smallholdings of tapioca, cashew and pineapple, this is the kind of palm-fronded paradise that has made Kerala so desirable.
But from the bluff that juts out into the bay the view is equally idyllic and far more intriguing. To the right the coastline sweeps towards Trivandrum and, through the spray, vivid with sunlight, I can see an old church steeple. Looking left — or south — is a small, ornate Hindu temple and a homely B&B in the same gaudy style. Behind me, and no less symbolic, is my hotel’s licensed bar and restaurant.
The cheek-by-jowl proximity of world religions and a tolerance of western customs even while clinging to ancient traditions of dress and behaviour are peculiarly Keralan traits. On the drive over the hill, I pass other key symbols of Keralan life: communist graffiti dominates, alongside flyposters for the Green party and adverts for Ayurvedic treatment at state clinics as well as luxury resorts. Back on the highway, there’s a Tibetan craft shop, a sign for a German bakery, and temples that betray Tamil influence. Faces and skintones reveal many other corners of India: Gujaratis, Marwaris, Parsees and Kudumbis have all come to settle in Kerala during centuries past.
This rich masala of ideologies, fashions and native character means our experience of Kerala might be rather more than a week of fish curries and sunbathing — though there’s nothing wrong with those. Sinna, my guide — the word fails to suggest what good company he was — protested that “coming to the beach is not coming to Kerala at all, as beach culture is simply not an Indian thing. You’re only likely to meet westerners on the beach, and you’ll pay European prices for westernised food”.
I’d come into the state slowly, via the stunning Unesco temple site at Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu and a long overnight train journey from Chennai to Kochi. This pretty colonial town is probably the ideal gateway to Kerala, as it compresses in a tiny space the region’s ancient history — spices, Judaism, fishing and trading — with that of the later Dutch, Portugese and British settlements. Cosmopolitan, liberal, artsy, Kochi is as welcoming to tourists, expats and backpackers now as it once was to Egyptian sailors and Chinese merchants.
Trade goes on here much as it has for centuries. The cantilevered Chinese nets on the main dock provide scant supplies these days, but the ocean-going boats bring in vast catches of bass, catfish and seer fish and huge tiger prawns. The hauls landed, buyers come to negotiate, dressed in bleached white lungis (sarongs) and starched dress shirts, using tiny hand movements to indicate the price they offer and quantity of fish required. Tourists too can buy a fish and take it over to one of the grill restaurants to have it prepared to taste.
The Mattancherry Palace (aka Dutch Palace) has another angle on tolerance, as expressed by artistic representations of Krishna.
After a walking tour of Kochi’s posh hotels, charming alleyways and a sweet, clove-scented cuppa at a stylish, if very westernised, tea shop Sinna took me to Kayees. Opened in 1949, this simple canteen serves the best biriyani in town for 30 rupees, with forks available if you need them. It opens at noon and 6.30pm every day and each sitting closes when the food runs out.
Tourism is helping Kochi upgrade its colonial architecture and reverse the flow of migrants outwards, especially from the so-called ‘Anglo’ community. Instead of heading for major cities to the north or overseas, English-speaking middle-class Keralans, many of them Christians, are now staying behind to establish boutique-style homestays in their old family houses in the Fort Kochi district. On the Parade Ground — Kochi’s main square, and a screamer for a game of cricket — several works in progress were already beginning to look like classy B&Bs.
All this activity, historic and contemporary, makes for a heady dose of culture and information, but it’s a short hop from this urbane port town to the backwaters. A man-made network of channels linking three major rivers, some 40 lesser rivers and countless tributaries to the Vembanad lake and several smaller lagoons, this is Kerala’s green beach — a vast inland wetlands brimming with wildlife and wondrously peaceful.
The rice boats are luxurious, usually coming fitted with two double bedrooms, a sun-lounge space, dining room, en-suite loos and a small kitchen. The chef on board prepared a lunch banquet of pineapple curry, vegetable curry, fish and cabbage.
Fly-by-nighters often choose to spend just one day, and maybe a night, on the backwaters, but there’s more to the region than idling. This is the very heart of Kerala’s agricultural wealth and there are communities and working plantations spread all over.
I could have slept on the boat but opted to stay over at Coconut Lagoon, the backwater resort that pioneered the Kerala boutique-shack look by dismantling and relocating an old rural residence. There was a lavish buffet restaurant on site.
After the gorgeous retreat of the backwaters we returned to the coast road — the NH47 — skirting the clifftop resorts at Varkala, the ugly, bustling market town of Kollam and Kerala’s capital, Trivandrum.
Before I left Trivandrum, I asked the taxi driver to take me past the Communist HQ of Kerala. The office was closed for a Hindu festival — Trotsky would have gone even redder in the face if he’d witnessed Kerala’s respectfully religious style of people’s revolution — but there was no mistaking the importance of the building: a massive three-dimensional steel hammer and sickle was hanging over the main portico. With the old Ambassador car parked outside, it could have been Havana — but here people have chosen Marxism and modified it over the years to suit their whims.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service
