Ellen Besso Coaching

We’ve been in south India for over a week now; I seemed to immediately go into withdrawal mode after we flew into Trivandrum from Delhi – perhaps partly the sensory overload of the northern India cities, & partly the relaxed atmosphere here!

We’ve been at Wild Palms on the Sea most of the time after an initial 3 days at Wild Palms Trivandrum. The state of Kerala in south India is like a different country from the north (although we were mostly in big cities up there). I’m so glad we’re getting kind of an overview of India – all the way from the Himalayan foothills of the far north, to Delhi & Varanasi, now down almost to the southern tip of the country.

Wild Palms is in the village of Puthenthope, about a 20-minute drive from Trivandrum. This beautiful resort with 10 rooms built on a long narrow lot of beachfront was the family land of Justin Pereira, the owner through several generations. Justin & his wife lived in London for 40 years & raised their family there before returning here to build first the city homestay 10 years ago, then the sea resort 3 years ago. We have learned so much about Kerala’s history & politics from our talks with Justin.

We’ve also met many people from different countries here (as we did in Varanasi), & became friends with some of them, & also with the hotel staff. A new Indian friend, who lives in London & is here to sell his family home invited us to spend a day & night on his houseboat for an inland waters cruise out of Alleppey, a 2-1/2 hour train ride north of here. Harris wanted to check out the route & his friend, a professional photographer came along to take pictures for the website.

It was a day to remember. The inland waters consist of a series of canals, a river & large lake. All along the canals are tiny villages with stores & colourful homes, with a narrow pathway along the waterfront where walkers briskly go by & bicyclists & motorcyclists make their way. I’ve never seen anything like it & may never again. (We’ll try to get some pictures of them up on the blog soon.)

There was a general strike on the day we were returning from Alleppey (including all taxis). It was a protest because there was talk of the neighbouring state, Tamil Nadu, taking over 1 of the Keralan rail companies & possibly the Trivandrum airport. This plan is politically driven; the Tamil Nadu state government is the same party as that in power federally. The boat builder said he’d make a car available for us to get to the train station. Our hotel didn’t want to pick us up as they were afraid that strikers would throw stones at the car at the Trivandrum station. It was decided that we’d take a bus (it turned out later that those workers were on strike also). The train trip was uneventful until we neared Trivandrum; then the train stopped & sat for about half an hour. We were stopped right near the Puthenthope station, so our photographer arranged for our hotel owner to pick us up there. We disembarked from the train quickly, walked across several several tracks & onto the station platform. It worked out much better than going into Trivandrum would have. What would a trip to India be without at least 1 strike!

The rest of our time we’ve spent taking short early morning walks around the neighbourhood of Puthenthope, walking on the beach later in the day, & veging by the pool . We’ve walked along the narrow side lanes, where lots of beautiful houses are located, & this morning down the main road to a large church & graveyard. (the Catholic Christians live near the water & the Hindus farther back).

Almost everyone owns their own home in Kerala. It has had communist governments about every other 5 year term since 1958. Justin just told us that he took part in protests to get rid of the communist government in ’58 & was jailed for his part in that. There is a high literacy rate in Kerala which helps the standard of living. However, the main factor in the quality of living here is money sent back from the middle east from people working away. Most families have at least 1 member away. Mercy, our very lovely front desk receptionist at Wild Palms lives with her 8 month old baby, mother & siblings near the hotel, while her husband works as an electrician in Dubai. He has been there since August, & will return on leave after 2 years.

The fishermen go out very early in the morning when it’s still dark, if they can manage to get the boats into water (the waves are high at all times; swimming is unsafe). It’s a hard life with not a lot of rewards we’re told. The fishermen historically were Christians; now there are more Hindus in the business as the Christians often have money ‘from away’ & from waterfront land holdings.

We have 2 more days here to relax; I’ve managed to stretch our stay out to 9 days including the away time on the boat (with no objections from Don I might add). Monday we’re on to Cochin, about a 4 hour train trip on the express train. Cochin is a very old city with interesting architecture, quite touristy, but nice apparently. From our base there we will go to the wildlife sanctuary inland for a couple of days & 1 night.

Well, all for now.

Namaste