For forty years I had been listening to my husband tell me of his childhood in India. In all that time I was unable to persuade him to go back for a visit even though in that time it got easier and more affordable. Imagine my surprise when he announced that for our 40th wedding anniversary we would be taking the one trip I had been longing for. What wasn't a surprise was that I would be making the arrangements but as that is a large part of the fun of this type of trip it was not a problem. Visas, inoculations and anti malaria medication were all arranged first. After much research and many brochure hunts we booked a three week holiday, with Manos, to Kerala at the southern tip of India, the middle week to be spent travelling round visiting the places I had heard so much about, this we booked with Inspirations, the up market parent company of Manos. This was because that tour gave us a better selection of destinations than any other. We chose to go in early December and after a 13hour flight, with Monarch, broken by a stopover in Dubai, landed at Trivandarum from where we were transferred to Lighthouse Beach, 16k away and our hotel. All the top hotels in the area had been booked up when we were looking so we had settled for a cheaper option. The Rockholm Hotel is situated right on the coast Each morning we breakfasted on a terrace watching the local boys searching for crustaceans on the rocks below. Compared to those other hotels ours was a tad basic but we had a large room looking out onto the sea, an en suite wet room and, we found out quite soon, we also had the best restaurant in the area. As we don't like swimming in the sea the fact that the hotel didn't have a swimming pool gave us a good excuse to explore those other hotels, which were just a walk away along the beach. For a fee we were able to spend afternoons working on a tan, having a poolside lunch and getting some exercise. Lighthouse Beach, named after the lighthouse situated at one end is part of the Kovalam trio of beaches and is typical of all the beaches catering for tourists. Ramshackle huts, fronted by tables and chairs, line the sand selling food at all times. Souvenir stalls and shops offering clothes, carvings and shells fill every gap and vendors patrol the tract between them and the sea offering their wares with, mostly, gentle persistence. At the sea's edge local fishermen get their nets and boats ready for the night's fishing. The boats cast off at dusk and their flickering lights can be seen from the shoreline. You have to get up early to see the catch landed and everyone comes to help haul the boats up the sand. The women stand around waiting to buy the fish as it is landed. The Tour We were picked up from the hotel and taken to the airport for the second part of our holiday on the Saturday. At the airport we were met by a young man, Deleep, who was to be our companion for the whole trip. He it was who shepherded all 12 of us from one destination to the next. Having arrived early we were able to meet the other "explorers" as they joined us and a motley troupe we all were. Inevitably we were joined by a "Pukkah Sahib, khaki shorts, polished shoes, long white socks and a cravat at his neck, a riding crop under the arm would have finished the ensemble. A fine example of the British Raj! Another, a retired teacher, it turned out, could complain for England. Our first port of call was to be Bangalore in the state of Karnataka just a 1.1/2 hour flight away by Indian Airlines. In my husbands day, the centre of the British army's administration and where he was born. Solid, stone clad buildings were a testament to a foreign occupation but to his dismay they had been left to gently decay. Bangalore is a bustling commercial and IT centre and owing to the fact that practically everyone travels by scooter, unpleasantly polluted, particularly at rush hours. We were checked into The Hotel Central Park and left to settle. Later we started our sightseeing with a visit to one of many Bull Temples. Massive carved animals decorated with flowers and bright colours with their own “priest” in attendance. Then a Wooden Palace that belonged to Tipu Sultan, the last Maharaja to succumb to British rule. A visit to the Lal Bagh botanical gardens gave us our first real experience of beggars. The next day a small coach picked us up and this was to be our mode of transport for much of the rest of the tour. Mysore and hotel Southern Star was our next destination, a pleasant evening was spent visiting the Brindivan Gardens laid out below the massive Krishnaraja Sagar Dam where illuminated fountains draw crowds of tourists each day at dusk. Next day having seen the Nandi Bull, this one in the open air, it was on to the Maharaja's palace, a magnificent structure. Open to the elements on all sides it presides over a flat plain that you just have to let your imagination populate for you. The interior was as you would expect, sumptuously decorated with marble, carved woods and mosaics, the central throne room was lined with paintings of the maharaja with eyes that followed you around. Far beneath the royal apartments were stables for the royal elephants, now empty. The exterior was a bustle of vendors and beggars. These two are a constant and can be an irritation. If you buy something from a vendor that is not the end of it as you would hope. If you can buy one you can buy more seems to be the theory. If you give to one beggar you can be overwhelmed by the press of eager hands and bodies as others surge around you. A strategy is required for both and each visitor must work out their own. From Mysore we travelled to Bandipur. Our hotel that night, the Monarch Safari Park, was very different. Wooden cabins built on stilts, the restaurant built in the same manner gave a feeling of being on safari and indeed the next day we were able to ride elephants through forests and look out for but not see, tigers and other wildlife. On again, this time to Ooty, a hill station in Tamil Nardu where the British sent their families during the hot season and near where my husband went to school. On arriving at the Hotel Sinclairs we were amazed to find a dance troupe performing in the foyer. Very Bollywood! We learned that the hotel at Bandipur and this one were both owned by an Indian film star and were frequently used in his films. A trip down from Ooty to Coonoor, on the narrow gauge railway that serves a number of villages on the mountainside, took us near my husband's old school, the stations we passed all had names familiar to me from his stories. That afternoon we all climbed into the coach only to be asked to all sit on one side. We were going down a steep gradient and this ploy was necessary to keep the vehicle on an even keel. I don't think any of us realised how high we had climbed but the panoramic views of the highest peak in the Nilgiris, Doddabetta and surrounding hills planted with tea, showed how high we had come. With only a stop at Coimbatore, an industrial centre, for lunch, we arrived in Cochin, capital of Kerala, the tour all but over. There the Hotel Casino was, like all the others we stayed at on the tour, of good standard offering comfortable rooms and good service. Breakfast was included and of good quality, evening meals offered a wide variety of dishes. The next morning a visit to the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets at the tip of Fort Cochin, introduced by traders from the court of Kublai Khan was one visit too many for both of us so we lazed round the pool. In the evening we visited a theatre to see a traditional Kathakali dance performance where watching the performers put on their very ornate and complicated makeup and costumes is part of the evenings entertainment. Next morning we were ushered to the station and started an 8hour train journey back to Trivandrum. Back at The Rockholme we found we had been missed, and there were a few envious faces as we told of our adventures. Our third week was much like the first, restful!
I would recommend this sort of tour to anyone wanting to see more of India than just the nearest beach and town. However we both found it a strain being thrown together with people who were merely "Doing India" It was very special for both of us and petty whingeing and fault finding was tiresome and at times spiteful. [Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills would give you a taste of the personalities we found ourselves joined by.]. Deleep, the young man who escorted us made our journey smooth and problem free. There were those who thought he should be a guide too but failed to appreciate the extras he brought to the tour like a breif stop at a silk market, another at a coffee plantation. Guides were available at the major stops and Deleep negotiated with them and gave us advice on their use. I was surprised that no-one had done any homework and found out about the places they would visit. Rough Guides and Lonely Planet books are an ideal source of that sort of information. Our next trip, from Goa to New Delhi and the Taj Mahal in Agra was just us and a car driver……much better.
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