TBK remembers visiting God’s Country- Kerala in India

Back in 2013 after many people recommending I visit India I applied for a visa and arranged a tour of Kerala with Chennai Pannicker travel. I still remember my colleague spelling out the name of the travel agent “ That’s Chennai as in the place, Pan as in frying and Knicker as in ***”

We saw all different types of transport in Kerala

They were very helpful and out together an itinerary, booked the hotels and arranged a driver to collect me from the airport and take me from place to place. We visited several towns over the 9 days and the hotels were all very pleasant. I even got used to having curry for Breakfast, lunch and dinner! As well as seeing the green countryside ( a welcome relief after 5 years in Bahrain ) and exploring the mountains, tea plantations, parks and gardens we had 24 hours on a houseboat on the Backwaters of Alleppey ( my favourite part of the trip) and stayed by the sea and the rivers.

Sadly the hardest part to arrange was the visa, which involved great expense, several visits to the company who then had the contract for Indian visa issue in Bahrain and calls and emails to the Indian embassy. Finally, the agent delivered the visa and my passport by Taxi to Awali as I was waiting to leave for the airport.

We had an interesting talk on how to make tea and a tour of the factory

We arrived in the early hours and soon were heading up into mountainous Muneer, which was very cold after Bahrain! We visited a tea plantation and saw how tea is made and should be prepared , before getting our free sample of tea from a vending machine, and being led to the shop to buy our pasalubong ( gifts).

Next we headed up to Eravikulam national park , in the clouds, and saw some very rare animals . There was also a party of schoolboys on an expedition and they were all delighted to see another very rare creature- a white man – and queued up to have pictures taken with me!

Some of the boys admiring the view

I spent a couple of days on a river where you had to get a boat from the reception desk to your room- the peace was heavenly and the food, delivered to my room, was amazing . The peace was only shattered the next day by some teenage boys on the opposite bank larking around, stripping to their underwear and swimming over to ask if I had any cigarettes. They were out of luck as I had given up for 11 years by then!

The beautiful backwaters of Kerala

I had a night by the sea and watched the fishermen with their nets and in the early morning managed to get a great shot of several guys coming ashore with their catch on their home made rafts- which has pride of place on my landing here in Palawan.

The fishermen bring in their catch in Kerala

Eventually it was time for my houseboat trip which was the height of luxury. The owner of Chennai Pannicker Travel himself collected me from my last hotel, took me to the boat and introduced me to the Captain, chef and crew member, and off we set. On route we stopped for beer ( I was still drinking then) and seafood and to visit a church . Best of all was just relaxing and watching Indian life go by as we cruised down the backwaters. We saw families wave, kids cycling to school and so on. While we travelled the Chef prepared dinner which was served, complete with beer and fish as we progressed. Finally we stopped and tied up overnight and I got another great shot of the sunset over the backwaters ( also on my wall).

The view from my houseboat as the sun set on the backwaters

The breakfast the next morning was equally impressive as , after a good nights sleep on board, we headed back to Alleppey. Sadly all good things come to an end and once on dry land we headed to Cochin where I spent the final night before flying home to Bahrain.

One of the many houseboats we passed on or journey

On the last day we had a boat trip ( to see an Oil Tanker arriving from Saudi Arabia!) on a very rickety boat with plastic chairs sliding all over the place. We also saw the fishermen and their famous nets, the ice cream seller, and some famous buildings.

I still have to return and Carl May has promised to take me around the rest of Kerala and see his family home. My thanks to Sajid and my gardener Shji and everyone else from Kerala who suggested where to go and the team at Chennai PanNICKER travel for looking after me so well!