Rajasthan's View

The Quiet Life

The joy of doing nothing at a Rajasthani farm.

In the pitch-black darkness that is only possible in the countryside, I lay and heard the dogs howl. A night of dogs turned wolves, the countryside was a vast echoing polyphonic spree of howls, buzzing crickets, thumps and bumps of birds on the thatched roof, the occasional thik-thik-thik-thik of lizards.

A massive flat bowl in the night, flanked by the low ranges of the Aravalis, the hinterland of Rajasthan slept soundly under a starry dome. A train engine whistled in the background, moving shrilly across the stereo spectrum, from left to right. Then came the low humming chug of the wheels, and the metallic clanking of levers. Startled by this sudden sound, the dogs took up their howling again, at first far away, then moving closer, like a tag team of grieving vampires, a blood call as a red gibbous moon set.

A holiday in the countryside that involves massive dollops of doing nothing in particular doesn’t necessarily work for me. I mean, sure, it has its uses, for city folks to ‘unwind’ and find some peace and quiet. But I get enough peace in the city, and when I see wide-open spaces I find it difficult to quell my restlessness. Setting off for a rural holiday in Rajasthan, I was a bit apprehensive. Driving to Jaipur is never fun, partly due to the unending chain of perpetually unfinished flyovers that dot NH8, and the interminable parade of fly-bitten small towns of Haryana and Rajasthan. And then there’s the profound devastation of the countryside—I can’t think of a more poignant symbol of ‘development’ than the sight of entire hills clawed away to provide luxury tiles for Gurgaon apartments.

The Nirvana farm is meant for those travellers who crave something more than lofty palaces and luxury trains

But then we turned right onto the Ajmer highway before entering Jaipur city, and classic Rajasthan made its appearance—unending ranges of the ancient Aravalis, scrub plains and, yes, greenery! I breathed a sigh of relief. About half an hour later, when our car trundled into the Nirvana Organic Resort, a large farm green with trees and awash in the chatter of innumerable birds, I’d already begun warming to the idea of spending a few days here.

Maliram and his wife Manju, who live on the farm with their small son Krishan, a couple of buffaloes and some goats, welcomed us. I stepped onto the soft turf, and felt the cool breeze on my face, and my unease at having to relax disappeared.

Nirvana is the brainchild of Jaipur-based businessman Arvind Modi. A yoga-lover and organic farming aficionado, he created Nirvana about eight years ago as an expression of his twin passions. Some years ago he converted it into a farm-stay that targeted the kind of travellers to Rajasthan who don’t just crave lofty palaces and luxury trains, but would also like to spend some days doing nothing in particular in rural bliss. Maliram and his family took care of the farm.

My cottage was a luxuriously basic affair, a large bedroom with a double bed, with a massive attached toilet. The farm itself was pretty large, comprising four beautiful, spacious cottages that are designed to look like traditional thatched huts. I felt at home soon and, yes, it was very quiet, the kind where the only sound you hear is that of the busy birds and the rustling breeze in the trees. 

After a late lunch of puris and subzi grown on the farm, Puneet and I took a walk around Nirvana. It is bordered on one end by the dry bed of the Bandi river, a seasonal stream like all rivers in this arid state, and a large copse of trees on the other side. We walked through dry grass and painful burrs, clambering on to ruined walls and following trails of dried dung to figure our way around. It was a beautiful evening, the setting sun casting long sloping shadows across a land softened in the gentle light. Puneet walked off towards a large water tank and stood like a sentinel in the distance to take pictures while I wandered among the tall, wild grasses growing by the dry Bandi.

Despite the aridity, this region just north of Jaipur boasts of a high water table. In fact the water that we drank during our stay at Nirvana was delicious, the kind that truly quenches thirst. Not since my childhood in the Bihar countryside have I tasted natural water this lovely. This in turn reminded me of a couple of articles I’d read recently on how this region of Rajasthan was part of a fertile belt of flowing rivers just a few thousand years ago. Indeed, Indus Valley Civilisation seals depict rhinoceroses as a common animal.

While thinking these deep thoughts—and really, can anyone enjoy walks like these in the city?—I found myself back in the farm, desperate for tea. This arrived in clay kulhars, milky, sweet and quite potent. Puneet had returned from his jaunt, and the two of us sat around listening to the crickets, and watching a couple of spotted owls flying around the farm, silently hunting for insects.

I woke early the next morning to the hysterical chatter of a family of babblers that lived near my cottage. I wandered out to talk to Maliram about a hike he had suggested in the hills above the town of Samode. A colourful rufous treepie with a long tail was hanging upside down from the roof of the dining area, tugging with all its might to get a bit of straw to line its nest. The farm was lazily abuzz with activity. Manju was making breakfast and Krishan was feeding the buffaloes. Maliram was changing the water of the fish pond, while Ishan, our driver, was vigorously washing his car and humming to himself. I was seduced by the thought of dozing all day, reading the book I’d brought along.

I was seduced by the thought of dozing all day, reading the book I’d brought along with me

But the thought of a ramble in the Aravalis was too tempting to abandon. So we devoured a stack of delicious aloo parathas, and set off to Samode, about twenty kilometres from the farm. Set in a deep cleft of the Aravalis, this medieval walled city is best known for its sixteenth-century palace-turned-luxury hotel. But it has other charms too, such as the massive doorways with Mughal motifs and the tiny alleys that branch out from the main cobblestoned street. Samode is, of course, deeply feudal, as is evidenced by the lavish palace of the local thakurs, but I was keen on exploring the trails in the hills above, which the villagers and sheep-herders take to nearby temples and pastures.

We left our car in the parking lot beside the palace and climbed up into the hills, first by a steep staircase embedded into the rock and then on the trail to the Hanuman temple on the far side of the range, perched on a cliff-top. Just above the Samode valley towered the ramparts of Sheogarh fort, the old town’s main fortress, an imposing black structure bristling with menace. We climbed higher still, past strange, gnarled, dead trees and the occasional watering hole for man and beast. The hills were covered in a dry, coarse grass that bent in the wind. Strategically placed trees along the track offered shade and a chance to nurse aching calves to a sparse trickle of pilgrims and herders on their way around the hills. 

The temple of the Samode Balaji is quite famous in these parts. As we approached the temple, scrambling over granite outcrops, Maliram told me that during the Navratra, pilgrims would stand in long lines, pressed against each other all the way down to the valley, to get a glimpse of the image. Once we’d negotiated the langurs that hung around the temple gates, we saw the deity—a seven-foot-high block of granite rock, painted red and with large eyes. It’s a well-funded temple, which these days seems to result in the architecturally tacky, and this was no exception. But I didn’t try telling that to a posse of serious little boys, dressed in the saffron robes of trainee monks and extremely proud of the establishment, who were returning from their communal lunch. Traipsing about on barren hillsides under a harsh sun can be hungry work, so we headed for a line of shops just below the temple selling laddoos, sweetmeats, puris and samosas.

Maliram and his wife Manju live on the farm with their son, a couple of buffaloes and some goats

On the way back, we left the main track and veered deeper into the hills. An immense bleached sky stretched above a blue earth of short ridges fanning out in every direction. What we were walking on was basically a large plateau, headed for an older shrine, this one housing a Hanuman with five eyes. A much more modest affair, the small white temple and its courtyard is far more elegant than the main temple. But the main attraction lay still higher, set amidst a large amphitheatre of granite boulders. Through some geological quirk, on the pinnacle of the range lay a massive hollow boulder, creating a natural cave. It’s a popular and slightly feared Tantric spot of Shakti worship.

It was pitch-dark inside, and seemed roomy enough to easily fit a dozen people. A stoned sadhu crouched in one corner, while gaudy new portraits of Santoshi Ma besmirched the mystery of the place somewhat. Maliram seemed none too happy. When he’d last come here, some twelve years ago, none of this was here. Local herdsmen would come here to light candles and leave quickly before sunset. Hearing the lonely wind whistling through the boulders, I could well imagine the apprehension that villagers felt about spending the night here.

Sunburnt, exhausted but totally happy, we trooped back to Nirvana at the end of the day. At a Banjara tribal settlement nearby, farmers were threshing peanuts. Maliram showed me around the farm, which was waiting for his winter crops to be sowed. It’s quite a self-sufficient setup, with Maliram growing peanuts and beans in the winter, and ladyfinger and bottlegourd in the summer months, along with other seasonal varieties. A shower later, Puneet went off to photograph the tribal village, while I settled down to wait for the owls to return. The sun set reluctantly, like a loitering little boy who doesn’t want to go to bed. First it shone on me through a perfect tunnel of leaves, then as it sank lower, the world started glowing a luminous red. Squirrels dashed about on the lawn and the babbler family settled down for a last round of shrill chatter before all light faded. The treepie was back, upside down, tugging at a straw with all his might. A lapwing stalked about on its dainty legs, looking for worms.

Finally the gigantic red sun went down, and I found myself looking forward to the black darkness of the rural night, the faraway howls of dogs, the thump and flutter of nocturnal birds and the buzzing of crickets. There was the train again, blowing its way through fields and hills, over dry rivers and past sedentary cows, going from left to right in a vast world. Everything in its right place.

---

The Information

Getting There

It’s best to make a driving trip from Delhi. Follow NH8 from Delhi to Jaipur, and get on the Ajmer expressway at the town of Chandwaji, about 40km before Jaipur. Cross the toll gate and stay on the expressway for approximately 30km before turning right onto the well-marked Sikar highway. Follow the highway for about 10km until you get to a power plant on the left, where a two-lane road veers off to the left into the countryside. The Nirvana farm is located a couple of kilometres down the road. Give the farm’s caretaker Maliram a call (9660968997) and he will guide you from here. 

The farm

The Nirvana Organic Resort consists of four large cottages with double bedrooms and attached toilets. Tariff: Rs 1,200 for the normal cottages and Rs 1,500 for the one deluxe cottage. Meals are an additional Rs 600 per person per day. Contact: Arvind Modi (9829013546,arvind@bitsnbytes.co.in) or see nirvanaorganicresort.com.

What To See & Do

You could spend a perfectly pleasurable couple of days holed up in the farm relaxing and taking little walks around to the nearby villages, or learning the finer points of organic agriculture. However, the farm is set in a very strategic location for local sightseeing and day-trips.  You can easily drive to Shekhawati, about 60km from here, to marvel at the architecture of its traditional havelis. The walled town of Samode is much closer, about 20km away. If you’re up to stretching your legs, I recommend doing the hike in the hills above Samode to get a better idea of theRajasthani wilderness. Even closer is the town of Chomu, and its medieval palace. Four largecattle fairs are held just outside Chomu annually, so check with Maliram for details. If there is one on, you wouldn’t want to miss it. Jaipur is about a half an hour’s drive away.

Jordan's View

Kibbeh Caravan

The culinary pilgrimage of a lifetime. And Jordan’s hallowed food trail has a sweet finish

The road whips back and forth through the sand. Switchbacking abruptly upwards and then sharply again in a downward slice. A rollercoaster road where sudden dust devils twirl at unexpected corners. Caravans from the queen of Palmyra or Cleopatra might have tamed it, filling the air with spices as they made their way slowly to a welcoming caravanserai. The Desert Highway has now been largely abandoned in favour of the King’s Road but Jordan has other roads to follow—food trails left by the classical world that moved through its landscape as steadily as the shifting sands.

I discovered the mellow stones of the Haret Jdoudna after an afternoon spent hefting sacks of rice and distributing Id gifts among the Bedouins in something I could only call the valley of stones. Madaba, the small town not too far from Amman and close to the Valley of Moab, has recently unearthed a clutch of Byzantine mosaics on a Roman street. And the Haret Jdoudnarestaurant (+962-5-3248650; haretjdoudna.com) has a wall made from old Roman stones with a gently cascading fountain in the courtyard. The place is built like a nineteenth-century Jordanian house with a ‘souk’ selling local handicrafts for charity and, among other intriguing wonders, food.

Meze in Jordan is served before large-scale meals, though you will find it at breakfast with its cheesy incarnations

Sitting by those golden stones in the afternoon sun you break bread and dip it into an infinite variety of dishes. Pickled eggplant with walnuts and garlic, crispy bits of pita bread with a mélange of vegetables, starred with scarlet tomatoes, rosemary, mushrooms and, of course, hummus. Meze in Jordan, as in all Levantine cuisine, is served before large-scale meals, though occasionally you will find it at breakfast with its creamy, cheesy incarnations. Crumbs dot the wooden table and time seems to disappear as you loll against the cushions, breaking bread. Weathered wooden cooking utensils dot the walls on the side over the earthenware pots. Glasses of mint steeped in sweet lemon juice pass from hand to hand.

The wind that blows is the drowsy wind from the Levant, from the road to Damascus, from the hills all around West Asia, with not a hint of strife in it. It gently stirs the spread of meze, both warm and cold, while the conversation floats to Lawrence of Arabia and banquets of sheep heads, their eyes a delicacy. “Mansaf,” someone says wisely, referring to banquets held by sheikhs with a sheep’s head added to a pile of rice and pine nuts to show their wealth of herds. There was logic to it, sacrificing a sheep for every one hundred, though the ladies were doubtful about the eyeballs and insisted Lawrence had exaggerated. 

Sheep dotted the ridges along the Desert Highway. From time to time modern caravanserais popped up to break the monotony of sand and potash plants. The serais were sheer eye candy, built around courtyards with green potted plants in the middle and striped sofas in cosy niches where people could sit back and sip mint tea in glasses—black tea, not the green Moroccan variety—or bargain for souvenirs. And for the fact that at 7 Jordanian dinars a glass (JOD 1=Rs 78), one could have said the tea was almost highway robbery!
The hills of Petra wore olive tree spikes, like strange rock-star headgear. Some of the trees had seen Roman sandals march past. Plunging past the Indiana Jones souvenir shop and dodging racing buggies, donkeys and horses, I entered the old city of Petra. Dust, Nabataean cobblestones and the famous treasury that opened out through the drama of the dark curving rock walls looked exactly like a film scene. An hour later, deeper into the stones and caves of the past and obstinately refusing donkey rides, it was time to recharge the batteries. For some time there had been an infiltration of restroom signs and souvenir shops with four walls instead of planks on the sand, selling stuffed Rajasthani camels. There was a coffee shop run by a New Zealand woman who had married a Bedouin and written a book about it, but the situation demanded more than coffee. The Basin at the Crowne Plaza Resort (+962-3-2156266) offers an atmospheric buffet lunch on the patio with a view of the sandstone rocks. The spread starts with meze baba ghanoush and hummus and goes on to chicken, lamb and smoked fish followed by lavish desserts of the Continental kind, all for JOD 17 a throw. A waiter came to chat in between shifting dishes and said he was being sent to train in the Marriott Mumbai.

At the Petra Marriott hotel (+962-3-2156407, marriott.com), however, after a day of tramping up and down the Nabataean sands and Petra’s rosy stripes, it was refuge from the cold winds in a red-and-black Bedouin tent by the pool waiting for a traditional dinner that took two hours to cook, buried in a cage underground with a lid and coals on top. Not the mansaf of sheep, but chicken with crisp, crackling skin that gave way to smooth simplicity, and rice and potatoes underneath. Enough to warm your hands and stomach with on a cold desert night. The hotel threw in Arab robes for those inclined to dress up or requiring extra warmth—a polyester blend though, not camel hair, obviously designed for modern times.

At Karak Castle, history remembers Reynald de Châtillon who obstinately held on to the strongest of the Crusader castles, flung his enemies down the iceberg steep walls and plundered spice-rich caravans at will. Karak, however, is also making a name for the Kir Heres Restaurant (+962-3-2355595) where your tastebuds can run into Roman extravagances such as ostrich steaks for JOD 7. Draped kilims set the atmosphere and make it look more expensive than it is. Don’t be worried. If you’re not experimental, try the chicken cooked local-style with herbs—but yes, you might find it difficult to go rock climbing in Karak Castle afterwards!

Most Ammanites will tell you indignantly that a shawarma is not take-away food and that these shawarmas are unusual

Where chicken is concerned, the R&B Shawerma in downtown Amman (Abu Bakr as-Siddiq St Downtown, 06-4645347) has the customary man shaving a tiered pyramid of meat and putting the flaky shards into a shawarma wrap. However, most Ammanites will tell you indignantly that a shawarma is not take-away food and that these shawarmas are unusual. They are available in three comfortable fist-filling sizes—six, ten and twelve inches—with your choice of fillings (Chinese, chicken and cheese) and fries on the side.

On a clear day, from the villa near the village of Wadi Seer, around twenty-four kilometres southwest of Amman, you can see as far as the West Bank looking out over the river. The house, sprawled generously over the hills, rises up from its own olive groves. Inside, was Syrian furniture inlaid with mother of pearl, painted walls and arches, Syrian costumes dating from the 1940s in glass niches on the walls. It was like being in a museum except that it belonged to Rosemary, an American married to a man from the Jordan valley and they had been living here since the 1960s. 

The actual activity was not upstairs amongst the antiques and upholstery but in the long room below. There, beside the piano and by the windows looking out on to the terrace was the table—a sizeable slab of wood groaning under an assortment of baskets and wooden dishes that covered most of the Levant’s culinary delights. Sesame and tomato kifte, teardrop-shaped lamp kibbeh with peanuts at its heart, stifado, slow-cooked beef stew rich with garlic, tomatoes and cinnamon…the air was warm with the scent of nutmeg. Facing the table was a row of pitchers and coffee makers dispensing honey, syrups and drinks of choice. An olive press could be seen lying among the rocks that bordered the swimming pool. In between meze I tried to find a way to see the West Bank or the river or both. Rosemary said the hills reminded her of Tennessee as she offered me sesame chikki made with honey and a pomelo salad punctuated with ruby pomegranate that had been grown on her own farm.

The weather was verging on winter and pomegranate season was in full swing—the road to Jerash, forty-eight kilometres north of Jordan, was dotted with sellers waiting for passing cars to stop and bargain. Two hours down the road and you would be knocking at the Syrian border. Here, the hills were green and had a look of Mediterranean landscapes about them, which was presumably why the Greeks and Romans had built in Jerash. At the Jerash Resthouse near Hadrian’s Arch (04-6351437), I discovered breadcrumb salad, moist with olive oil and lemon juice and bits of walnut at another all-you-can-eat buffet, which was a steal at JOD 5. The issue, I thought, was a chicken and egg one—had the Italians stolen the recipe for their own breadcrumb pasta? Or had it come to the Middle East with Hadrian and Antony and the rest? No one had any answers to my question so I buried it in bites of tangy white goat’s cheese shinklish and sips of more green mint and lemon sherbet.

Honeyed sweetness is another side of Jordan, a trail of candied delights that would have seduced Antony

Honeyed sweetness is another side of Jordan, a trail of candied delights that would have seduced Antony. The Zalatimo Brothers were famous for their confections, and stilettos and blue eyeshadow trotted in and out of their fashionable La Mirabellecafé (Al Umaweyyen St, East of Abdoun Mall, Amman; 06-5681018, zalatimosweets.com), obviously the place for ladies who lunch. What was served after the waiters decoded my stumbling mispronunciations was the murtabak, which had been created in 1860 when the Zalatimo Brothers set up shop. Layers of flaky pastry with goat’s cheese or pistachios and cream or walnuts folded inside (JOD 2.5 filled, JOD 3 with pistachios, JOD 1.5 plain), served with a honey and sugar-water syrup. Infinitely light, far from cloyingly sweet and to be savoured perhaps in between perfumed whiffs of a nargileh. Other Levantine delights are not so easy on the calorie conscience!

Then there was Crumz, calorific, high-profile and the cake shop of choice for expats planning birthday parties (Abdoun, Amman, 06-5920102). Continental was very definitely the flavour of modern Amman matching the white villas with trees shaped into cylinders of green. Cupcakes, tombstone cookies for Halloween, sheep cookies for Id and cupfuls of tiramisu with generous sprinklings of coffee. Not that Crumz was into elaborately shaped cakes—technology had brought Jordan graphic edible printing which cut down on the cake moulding effort and left room for brilliant icing colours. The individual pastries flared magenta, red and pistachio-green, as brilliant as the sequinned tunics, lipstick and nail polish of the habitués.

Miles away from Jordan, in a bus carrying passengers to another airport terminal, my eye was caught by large glossy white carrier bags with a familiar logo. One I’d seen dominating the Amman Duty Free. People were bringing Id treats to friends and relatives in other parts of the Middle East. The Zalatimo Brothers had had the last word.

Philippines's View

Water, Water, Everywhere

We swim with the sharks and dances with the fireflies in the Philippines. And even has a drop to drink

How do you visit a country that consists of over 7,000 islands? The answer is, take a lot of planes and boats. Usually little planes, landing in little airports, often right next to huge, smoking volcanoes. Because it’s worth taking all means of transportation possible to visit an archipelago smack in the middle of the Ring of Fire, a group of islands fought over bloodily during World War II, and one of the world’s most richly biodiverse lands, boasting a range of species that includes tarsiers, lemurs, dugongs, civet cats, whale sharks, orchids and more, and which teeters on the very edge of Asia, before the broad Pacific.

So why do tourists skip the Philippines when planning trips to Southeast Asian countries? 

It could be the food, or the bureaucracy. Let’s start with the latter, which almost stymied my attempts at getting there. Rare for the neighbourhood, Indians need visas prior to arrival to visit. And for whatever reason, the visa officer at the Delhi embassy assumed my sole intention in life was to illegally immigrate to their wonderful nation, despite having just voluntarily returned to India after a five-year stint in Europe.

Or maybe it’s the food. It’s incredible how you could take some of the best natural ingredients in the world—fresh fish, spices, incredible fruits—and turn them into an inedible mess. I heard from a friend that it’s because of a Pinoy philosophy of food, which is, “If this thing, let’s call itkaong, is good, and that thing, let’s call it pinipig is also good, kaong + pinipig must be amazing!” (Before the Philippines Embassy responds in a huff, allow me to mention that we ate some amazing food too, and a new generation of Pinoy chefs is showing the world that their food can indeed be amazing.)

We hopped on to a plane to Palawan, an island that juts out of Borneo like it might be a part of it, tectonically speaking. Apparently no one goes to Palawan because it’s full of rainforests and snakes and more volcanoes, which personally, I find awesome. My idea of travel is getting away from all the tourists. The plane landed in Puerto Princesa, the island’s small, lazy capital, on its eastern coast. Fifty kilometres away, on the opposite coast, lay our destination—the town of Sabang.

Near this town (barely a village, really) there’s an incredible natural feature—a cave containing an underground river that winds its way some eight kilometres through it, draining directly into the ocean.

The beach is clean, the sea wide, there are places to go to, nightclubs to check out

From the beach resort in Sabang—melodically punctuated by the sound of a regular, crashing wave—you can get there by noisy tuk-tuk, boat or a sweaty hour-long jungle hike. Any which way, it’s worth it. The South China Sea is a glorious blue, the island a lush, undisturbed canopy of green, filled with hornbills, parrots and macaques eating, playing and grooming on the beach, and for a while you feel like you’re the only people on this green-and-blue planet, and this is what it means to be alive. You lie back on the boat, under the stretched fabric of the awning, your toes pointed at the horizon, your destination. The boat’s engine takes a deeper note, slows down, and like out of a James Bond movie, that glorious John Barry’s Journey to… cue plays in your head, and the boatman steers into a hidden cove. Protected by rocks jutting into the sea is a small, hidden beach and a tiny trail to the park entrance.

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park is a Unesco-designated heritage site, and is classified as one of the ‘new seven wonders of nature’. Tourist-filled canoes slide into the wide maw of the river cave two at a time, and we stare up at wide ceilings, still-dripping stalactites and bizarre natural sculptures of limestone karst, lit dimly by our one spotlight and weak LED lamps. There are side openings and rooms yet to be explored, for the system extends deep into the island—the main, explored cave is twenty-four kilometres long.

The general public’s trip into the cave is limited only to a small initial section, and given the country’s Catholic fervour, every formation has a Biblical reference. The chambers are indeed grand, almost cathedral-like.

After the cave we mucked about on the beach, hopped over hermit crabs and found ourselves a long zipline stretching over the bay, which planted us almost back at our resort. We went to the airport, waited during the inevitable delay (every single flight we took in the Philippines was delayed), went through Manila (because all roads lead to Manila), and then headed to Donsol.

Donsol must be visited. It is a wide bay, home to the butanding. That’s what the locals call whale sharks, the world’s largest fish, a vulnerable species of unknown population. It’s a shark, the size of a schoolbus, which eats mostly plankton and, believe it or not, poses no threat to humans! In Donsol, you can swim with the sharks.

Before my editors roll their eyes and you dismiss me as another thrill-seeking lunatic, allow me to reiterate a few things: 1) Whale sharks are not aggressive and do not eat people. Being filter feeders, they barely even manage to eat tiny fish. 2) They swim just a few metres under the ocean surface, and you’re almost certain to see one, or four. 3) We had to fight off non-swimmer Korean mothers floating in the water, pulling along their non-swimming babies, both in life vests and flippers, to look at these amazing giants. So they’re totally tourist-friendly. 

You can’t scuba with them, you can only snorkel, and must never touch them despite the temptation to do so. Four to eight people share a boat with a local trained guide, who ensures you follow the rules.

Our first day in the bay was oddly fruitless. We spent hours hunting for a distant dark spot in the sea, but saw nothing. Our guide too shook his head—it was rare to not see something during the season (November to May). We shook hands and said we’d return.

The next morning, we were back. Flip-flops on, snorkelling gear in hand, we took off again into the ocean. As we strained our eyes, out of the blue, our guide, an experienced local wearing black swimming shorts and a grey ‘Butanding Interaction Officer’ T-shirt stood up and pointed. Just then—thar she blew, again, and again, and again. (This is just a figure of speech. Whale sharks don’t blow anything, they’re not whales).

The boat’s engine raced and we sped towards a spot in the open ocean. A palpable excitement was in the air, and we all swung our legs off the boat, sat on the edge, put on our masks, fins and snorkel. The boat almost skidded to a halt, the BIO said “Go!” and we splashed into the sea.

Allow me to make a confession. I’m a terrible swimmer. I learnt to swim when I was sixteen, after a near-drowning experience. But the sea is salty and you float easily, the fins help you move along, and just then, just below your floating body, slides into view a monster. Of course, I mean monster figuratively. It’s a huge being, with glowing white spots and ridges of cartilage and muscle. It swims below you, peacefully, its mouth yawning lazily for plankton. Above, on the water, there’s chaos. Korean mothers and babies have arrived on a dozen other boats, flouting the rules (only three boats can ‘interact’ with one whale shark at a time). Slower, less able swimmers such as I get kicked and pummelled, but if you’re a strong swimmer, you might be able to keep up with the giant fish—barely.

The sea aims to please, and she does, again and again. After the shark leaves us behind, we get back on the boat. And then there’s another one in the distance. Today, we don’t see just one; we have a total of three sightings. My friends, more adept in the water, dive deep and swim alongside, metres underwater. Each individual animal can be identified. This one, he’s got a harpoon scar. This one, she had babies last year.

Donsol has another attraction. As the sun sets and the air cools, after the breathless, whale-shark chasing excitement of the day, you grab a motorcycle taxi and head to the mangroves. Just outside the town the locals have discovered another attraction. Fireflies! At night, all along the mangrove river, gazillions of fireflies settle on individual trees and light them up like it’s Christmas. There are no words to describe it, but I’ll try. We hopped on another rickety boat and slowly paddled our way through the pitch-black night. Some minutes later we are away from any signs of life or light, and suddenly, we noticed bright sparks flying off shadowy trees along the waterway. The boatman pointed and turned the canoe towards one. And we sat back and watched the show. A tree came aglow with green luminescence, covered in thousands of bright, moving dots of light, brighter than stars. It was a moving halo of light, a natural laser show that no human construct could replicate. 

We took another plane. Our last and final destination in this Pacific wonderland was the pleasure planet of Boracay. The White Beach, literally, of this tiny island destination, shows up regularly on the covers of travel magazines, usually starring a bikini-clad beauty. We unfortunately showed up smack in the middle of some vacation or the other, and the place was packed with Asian tourists—pretty much the only ones who visit this nation, it seems. Boracay, for the Koreans, is sort of like our Goa. Somehow, we’d shown up on the one weekend of the year where the island was brimming at overcapacity. And even then, we had a section of the beach to ourselves, at Station 1—the high-rollers’ corner, so to speak.

The beach is clean and white, the sea is wide and waist-shallow, there are places to go to, nightclubs to check out and various things to do, from taking sailboats to other tiny islands and snorkelling sites to lazing on the sand. And if you’re so inclined, just cross the narrow strip of land to the other side of the island to Bulabog Beach, and check out one of Asia’s top kite-boarding destinations. At night, the island turns to party central, with barefoot dancers bursting the seams of beachside clubs. There’s obviously no dress-code here.

Before I end this piece, I need to tell you what we didn’t manage to do, because we ran out of time. Paddling about in one of the world’s most accessible shipwreck diving sites, the graveyards of Japanese ships sunk during World War II, in Coron. Hanging around with those incredibly cute wide-eyed tarsiers in Bohol. Checking out an island inside a volcano inside an island inside a volcano, near Manila, and partying it up in Cebu.

Pinoys, I guess we’ll be back.

---

The Information

Getting Around

Flying is the most efficient way to get from place to place in the Philippines. Airlines includeCebu Pacific, one of the better ones, as well as Zest Air and Sea Air.

Where to stay

• ManillaTwo popular hotels are The Bayleaf (from $80; thebayleaf.com.ph) and the centrally located, five-star Pan Pacific Manila (from $120; panpacific.com). 
• Sabang (Palawan) We stayed at the Daluyon Beach & Mountain Resort (from PHP 4,400; daluyonresort.com) but you can stay next door at the much larger Sheridan Beach Resort & Spa (from PHP 5,250; sheridanbeachresort.com).
• Donsol We stayed at the Elysia Beach Resort (from PHP 3,150; elysia-donsol.com). It’s a small, beachfront place with cottages around a pool. The only other ‘hotel’ option isGiddy’s Place, a PADI dive centre (from PHP 600 per person; giddysplace.com).
• Boracay Given the rush, it was a miracle we found any place to stay here at all. In general,
  Boracay is divided into stations. Station 1, at the northern end of the island, is the best place to stay. Station 3 is for backpackers, or the bay in the back where the kite surfers are. We barely snagged something at the ‘Balay Apartelle’, the serviced-apartment section of Boracay Terraces (from approx. PHP 6,000; boracayterraces.com). Mr Holiday, which is right on the beach, is rather more affordable if somewhat spartan (from PHP 1,000; mrholidaysboracay.com). Other popular hotels here include Shangri La’sBoracay Resort & Spa (from $520; shangri-la.com) and Dave’s Straw Hat Inn (from $20; davesstrawhatinn.com).

What to see & do

• Manilla This is one of Asia’s great hulking metropolises. There’s a lot of stuff to see and do here, including visiting the remains of the Walled City (Intramuros), where over 1,00,000 Filipino civilians and 16,000 US and Japanese soldiers were killed during WWII’s Battle of Manila.
  Intramuros also contains interesting sites such as the San Agustin church, a Unesco site. Chinatown (next to Intramuros) is also worth a look. Day trips from Manila include Corregidor, a fortified island in Manila Bay.
• Palawan The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park merits a visit for its unusual limestone karst landscape and an underground river that empties directly into the sea. The island province has many marine reserve parks and wildlife sanctuaries worth exploring. Coron Island offers excellent scuba diving and snorkelling.
• Donsol The most popular tourist activity here is whale shark viewing. The night firefly tour is another must do. Due to its hilly terrain, Donsol has good biking and trekking routes too.
• Boracay If you’re so inclined, you can also check out the world-famous Cocomangasbar (cocomangas.com), on Boracay main street. Successful participants of the ‘Still Standing After 15’ challenge honour their name and country with a plaque on the bar walls.

Thailand's 2nd View

Islands In The Sun

Location is everything, after communing with the cinematic setting of the islands of Lanta and Krabi

"There was once a chief on this coast,” says Mat, our island guide, “whose wife had no children. So she prayed to a powerful serpent that lived by the sea. The serpent said her boon would be granted, but she would have to wed her daughter to his serpent son when the girl came of age. The chief’s wife agreed. Time went by, and the promised girl grew up. Beautiful and adored by all, she fell in love with a fisherman’s son and wanted to marry him. Thinking that the serpent was sure to have forgotten the promise made so long ago, her parents agreed.

But the serpent remembered, and on the day of the wedding he approached a holy man to demand that the broken promise be avenged. This holy man was very powerful, and he cursed the wedding, turning the 150 guests into these islands,” he sketches a comprehensive, almost 360° sweep of his hand, “you see around you.”

The islands rise sheer and gigantic out of the water. Looming black, orange and white limestone cliffs fringed with tropical jungle, they float on the emerald-blue surface of the Andaman Sea. My toes are held as far out as they will go over the water, as the Ao Nang Princess speeds away from the mainland Nopparatara pier towards the island of Lanta in south Thailand. Droplets from the side wake of the launch cool my feet, salty wind whips through my hair and massifs hover over the water like the floating islands in Avatar.

We had taken an early morning flight out of Bangkok to Krabi, and a van to the pier. Now, the bright lights and nightlife of Bangkok seemed impossibly far behind, with only water, sunshine and clean tangy air ahead. The gateway to that happy promise is Sala Dan pier on Koh Lanta, which turns out to be both sleepy and welcoming. In a short while, we are in Lanta Sea Food, overlooking its own little fish farm in the bay. The spicy salad with seafood is excellent, as is the deep-fried whole sea bass. But it is only afternoon, and we have an island to explore, so after a gratifying, if short, lunch, we head out to the southernmost tip of Lanta Yai. “There is one paved road on the island,” says Mat, “All the beaches are on the right.” And there they are, spectacular stretches of white-gold sand and deep-green sea, fringed by coconut and pine, flashing by while I fidget in my seat, longing to stop and explore each one.

The eponymous chicken neck comes into view as we round a bend

Our current destination is the Koh Lanta National Park, at the southernmost tip of the island. The place seems deserted, but we are told to beware of the monkeys who will apparently commit any criminal act to steal food. The beach is white velvet, and it is drizzling just enough to lightly dampen the sand. I look out over the water, and can’t see the line between the water and the sky on the horizon. There are distant islands hanging in the deepening haze, and the water near my feet is clear with gentle lapping waves. A picture-perfect beach, complete with a lighthouse on a hill, and little rock pools with marine life washing in and out with the tide.

A quiet sunset later, we ride back to the north of Lanta Yai to visit the sea-gypsy village of Old Town. “Indonesian, Malay and Chinese people have lived together here for a long time,” says Mat, “They came by boat over many hundred years, and stayed.” Darkness falls as we wander the village, marvelling at the late evening sea view from the long pier and beachside cafés. The next day dawns bright and clear, and my swimsuit and I are absolutely ready to embark on the four-island tour. An hour of sun and spray from the Sala Dan pier, we drop anchor just off a beautiful white-sand beach on Tap Island, and I wade in. The water is warm and clean. Little near-transparent fish treat my legs as pillars to dart around on their busy ways, amidst shells, rocks and translucent emerald water. Turning to scan the horizon, I am greeted by the extraordinary sight of people carrying daypacks and umbrellas walking leisurely through the middle of the sea.

 “It’s a sandbar,” says Mat, “You can only do that at low tide, when the water is shallow all the way from Tap Island to Chicken Island.”
Chicken Island? It’s an unusual name for a behemoth of limestone and tropical vegetation. Later that day, the eponymous chicken neck comes into view as we round a bend, rising many hundreds of metres into the sky. There are barely visible rock climbers along the median reaches of the steep cliffs high above the water. Some have chosen to wear blue or bright red, otherwise they would be impossible to spot from the boat.

The food is exceptional even by the high standards of local restaurants

Just off Chicken Island is a sheltered cove in which we stop to snorkel. The water is calm and green, and seething with fish just below the surface. It is eight metres deep at this point, and we are warned not to dive too far, on account of the sea urchins. The striped yellow-and-black tigerfish are aggressively interested, pausing for a moment to meet my gaze square on with unblinking blue-lined eyes, and taking minute nips at my fingers and toes. There are two or three brown-and-white polka-dotted fish and a kingfisher-blue fish with yellow fins. The sea urchins are nestled in the coral far below, looking like mutant kiwifruit with bad intentions, equipped with long black spikes that I don’t really need a warning to avoid.

Lunch at Rai Leh beach includes a delicious tom yum soup and barracuda with vegetables, after which we are ready to island-hop again. This time, it is to the heart of the creation myth that explains this incredible topography. Phra Nang is the cave of the promised princess, around whose petrified wedding guests we have been boating, swimming and snorkelling. The cave itself is clearly a place of fertility wish-fulfillment. I am momentarily stunned, and then intrigued by the hundreds of phalluses in the shrine. They are of wood, some beautifully painted and finished, others rudimentary and weathered, piled over rocks rising high into the cave. Unfortunately, reports of a storm make it necessary to leave immediately, and the speedboat races incoming rain to Ao Nang beach. There, I am made happy once again by the purchase of a sweet-sounding, eleven-chambered reed flute from an old man on the beach. 

On the third day, we take a wooden longboat from Chao Fa pier to explore part of the coastal Krabi river. Mangrove forests line the channel, their roots adapted to handle high and low tide without damage to the leaves. In a short while, two huge limestone karsts appear on the horizon. This is our destination of the morning, the gateway to Krabi, Khao Khanap Nam. The cavernous limestone caves inside the eastern karst have grown a profusion of stalactites and stalagmites in an amazing variety of shapes and textures. Incredible-looking columns hang off a ceiling so high I can barely see it in the gloom.“The fastest a stalactite will grow is three millimetres a year, and stalagmites are slower,” says Mat, while I look at a dripstone that is at a conservative estimate between ten and twenty feet high. A sign at this very ancient cave informs us that fossils have been found in the area which are over thirty-five million years old, and the possibility crosses my mind that the cave may not have been very different when that fossil was flesh and blood.

Two huge limestone karsts appear on the horizon, the gateway to Krabi

This sudden perspective on the transience of life makes me hungry, and Mat’s sympathies are sought in the matter. The longboat now heads up the river to the island of Koh Klang, which is a Muslim village on the Krabi river. We are informed that the island is too small to require heavier transport than two-wheelers and tuk-tuks, and that it makes its own batik.

Our approach to Koh Klang is through the fish farm of the Kanabnum View Seafood Restaurant.  The resident blowfish puffs itself up alarmingly when displayed by an amused waiter, deflating like a balloon, to my immense relief, once back in the water. We sit on wooden benches beside the river and are refreshed by the local milky iced tea. The food is exceptional even by the generally high standards of local Thai food. Seafood and vegetables both taste absolutely fresh and the cooking is skilled and balanced. The stir-fried squid with cashewnut is superb, as are the barbecued prawns, as also the sea clam with sweet sauce. I go to compliment the chef and meet Sanah, whose smile lights up the room. “You did this all alone?” I ask “Oh, no,” she says, “I have a lot of help.” This help is two friendly ladies and a spotless kitchen, and I leave thoroughly impressed.

We head to the heart of the creation myth of this incredible topography

We take a tuk-tuk to see the island. A few minutes in, the landscape changes entirely. Paddy fields submerged in water are interspersed by clusters of small wooden houses with flowering gardens, peaceful in the afternoon sun. We are on the way to see and buy local batik (pa-tae). At the shop we meet Pa Prajim, who invites us to the workshop behind. The sunlit shed in which the fabric is painted stocks the traditional tools and sponge-headed brushes used for batik in this part of the world, with bolts of finished fabric drying in the shade. Mat tells us that this is part of the OTOP (One Tambun, One Product) initiative of the Thai government, in which each village is promoted for one distinctive product. The other OTOP that we visit makes longboats, and, as it turns out, a very good dry-shrimp and lemongrass paste.

The Moguls of Image, Hollywood, shot The Beach in this area, so I’m not the only person to think that there is a timeless, archetypal quality to the landscape. The soaring, fluid location shots in the movie do in fact capture the feeling of the unusual natural environment quite accurately, and I had thought those shots were simply the art of illusion. Next winter, I think, settling into my seat on the plane back to Bangkok. Next winter, I’ll be back.

---

The Information

Getting around

Tuk-tuks and two-wheelers are the most popular transport on Koh Lanta. Motorcycles and scooters are available for hire, starting at about THB 250 a day. Do carry your driver’s licence and photocopies of your passport, and insist on wearing a helmet. Bicycles are about THB 100 a day, and available close to most beaches.

Using Lanta as a base, it is possible to visit some of the 150 islands in the area. Tourism is organised, and it’s a good idea to take day tours. Choose among the ‘four islands one day’ tour (THB 900), to Tab, Chicken and Poda Islands, and Phra Nang cave; the ‘one day trip to four islands by long-tail boat’ (THB 850) which will take you to Koh Chuck, Mook, Ngai and Ma; the ‘one-day trip to Koh Rok’ (THB 1,500), which focuses on snorkelling; the ‘one-day jungle tour’ (THB 2,500), which includes elephant trekking, the emerald pool and hot springs and other options. For more details, see aonangtravel.co.th.

Where to stay

The island is dotted with hotels and guesthouses. We stayed at the Pilanta Spa Resort (from THB 2,900; pilanta.com), about a kilometre from Klong Dao beach in Koh Lanta. At Krabi, we stayed at the Aonang Princeville Resort (from THB 3,000; aonangprinceville.com). This hotel has a saltwater swimming pool, and serves halal food.

Tips

• Language may be a problem if you are travelling in a small group or alone. Most people you will encounter at restaurants and markets speak only rudimentary English, so carry an English-Thai phrase book and learn to use it.
• The voltage is 220, like India, but you may need a round-to-square pin converter. Also, hotel rooms don’t always have 15 amp plug points, so pack camera and other electronic gear accordingly.
• Don’t forget sunscreen, a shady hat, rubber slippers and insect repellent, and be sure to drink water and sweet-salt fresh lime and eat fruit to counteract dehydration by sun and salt water.

Kasargod View

Pearl Of The Orient

The treasures of Oyster Opera in Kerala’s remote north.

A new neighbour recently announced the travel plan for his “last weekend as a single man”. He was to be married in a month and, before that, he was going off to pitch a tent in “a beach no one else knows exists. ”India would seem like the last place on earth to have a place as uninhabited as my neighbour would like it. This is a country whose people live even in mangroves with man-eating tigers. But finding a place that’s quiet even when populated is not as difficult as accepting it, and knowing that a-place-no-one-else-knows-exists will rarely come with hotel soap and towels, room service and infinity pools, black coffee and brown bread.

Fittingly, a region that I find specialises in living it down perfectly is in a place three times more densely populated than the rest of the country. That a state as tiny and toured as Kerala would still have beaches that only locals use is not only a relief, but also a bit of a ticking bomb. So it is with greatly controlled selfishness and abject fear that I present to readers of this magazine, the silence of Kasargod.
For long, I’ve been told by friends who live in south Kerala that the north is a rough place, and that Kasargod is one of the roughest. The best known folklores from the place are of the hanging of four young men in a pre-independence rebellion against the police, bloody farmers’ battles against landlords, the increasing communal tensions in the last decade and the horrors of a banned pesticide on cashew farming. A few days before I arrive, when I call Mr Gul, the proprietor of Oyster Opera, where I will stay, and he gruffly answers my queries for directions leaving me none the wiser, I unfairly think of the word a friend used for Kasargod: inhospitable. But in our very first face-to-face conversation, Mr Gul will himself say with pride, “I’m not a hospitality man,” and go on to disprove his harsh self-assessment in forty-eight hours.
Oyster Opera is in Padanna, about fifty-five kilometres from Kasargod city. En route, during one of the several long waits at railway crossings, the driver asks for directions at a teashop. Nobody seems to know it. Then I poke my head out the window, and explain that the village is called Thekkekadu. It’s an island? No reaction.
I mention it’s run by a Mr Gul. I can’t tell if I saw a glimmer of recognition or bemusement. In desperation, I start to describe a mussel farm and my photographer comes to the rescue by saying it in Malayalam: Kallumakai...um, farm.
The tea master finally points us to a lane adjacent to a furniture shop. We turn into it, winding our way closer to the distinct sound of oars hitting water.
It’s 6am, but Naanu, the cook at Oyster Opera, looks like he’s been awake for at least a couple of hours. Emerging from the tamarind aromas of the kitchen, he grabs our bags and seats us in the terracotta-floored dining area looking on to the coconut tree-lined backwaters. They’re not narrow like the famous backwaters of Alappuzha; as Naanu puts it, the space between one island and another is about “twenty-five snake boats”.

The farm-resort is Padanna’s way of showcasing its stunning locale and community spirit

Just as we’ve downed the last bits of the grape juice (slightly fermented so it’s sweeter), he tells us our ‘floating cottage’ is ready. But after gingerly walking around for ten minutes in the quaint bamboo room literally floating on the water, I admit to some queasiness and request to be transferred to firmer ground. Naanu puts me in a cottage called ‘Mussels’ overlooking the fish pond filled with pearl spot and prawn. He is shocked that I prefer this but the next day, when I explain it was my motion-sickness, Naanu says, “Ah yes, our feet are used to playing between water and land—like frogs. You have, heh, heh, concrete feet.” Despite the sting of insult, it’s hard to disagree with a man who spends as many hours in water as he does on land. 

When Mr Gul arrives for breakfast later, he warns me merrily about quirky behaviour from those working in the resort. Naanu, Mr Gul and all the staff of Oyster Opera are, first of all, residents of Padanna, having lived there for more than a generation. Secondly, they are the faces of Padanna’s claim to fame: they are among the two hundred local families successfully farming mussels in coir, an innovative method that combines two of the biggest industries in Kasargod. The trigger was Mr Gul’s panic about the heavy emigration in the district that was making the rich richer and the small farmers and fishermen poorer. He realised his home was nestled among four rivers and the backwaters, ideal for shrimp and mussel farming, which need both fresh and saline water. Spearheaded by Mr Gul in 2001 and funded by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, the experiment gradually worked.
Finally, the farmers joined hands to work on the resort, building it entirely on their own. Oyster Opera—the name refers to the singing of oysters just out of the water—is Padanna’s way of showcasing its stunning locale and community spirit. Everyone from the chef, sous chef, waiter, boatman and driver treats the resort like an extension of his or her home. And they feed their guests till they burst.
There was much feeding in Padanna, so superb I nearly wept. Sitting once again by the cool backwaters, I devour a breakfast of pola, a steamed cake made of rice and fermented coconut water (a traditional fast-breaker in Muslim homes here during Ramzan), and kilaachipolichathu, a soft-as-clouds crêpe made of the foam from churned raw rice paste, both drenched in delicately sweet coco-nut milk. There is puttu-kadala curry and appam-stew too, but they are beaten hollow by their less well-known northern counterparts. I wash that off with a sublime sulaimani chai, a black tea with cinnamon and a spritz of lemon. Then, I set out to work up an appetite for lunch.

Nearby is the Bekal fort, one of the biggest in South India and, for me, the most evocative

About thirty-five kilometres away is the Bekal Fort, one of the biggest in South India and, for me, the most evocative. As a movie junkie, I had been obsessed with this fort since Arvind Swamy stood on its citadel lip-syncing to A.R. Rahman’s song of eternal love in Bombay. It wasn’t Swamy’s portrayal of painful separation that got me. It was the mossy, rain-drenched fort walls that a burqa-clad Manisha Koirala runs along and the white anger of the sea against the weathered rocks. If gut-wrenching nostalgia had a form, this would be it.
So imagine my joy when I entered Bekal, and found it just as stunning as it was in its celluloid avatar. Armed with a handful of brine-soaked gooseberries sold outside the fort, the photographer and I walked along the massive twelve-metre-high walls, built of the same porous rust-coloured laterite bricks most homes in Kasargod still use. Built to the very tip of the coast by Malabar’s Sivappa Naik in the seventeenth century, it seems to rise up from the Arabian Sea. Every circular bastion sits on a natural fortress of rocks. The soldiers then did not have guns or much armoury, but an ASI plaque reminds me that the unparalleled view from here helped look out for invading Portuguese ships. The tall weeds, whistling in the coastal wind all over the fort’s forty acres, are a refreshing change from the mundane lawns of most ASI-conserved monuments. Through this foliage, thin walkways lead from Bekal to the namesake beach below the observation tower.

Despite being the most popular beach in Kasargod, being twenty kilometres away from the city has its advantages. The sands of Bekal are spotless, and the water a riot of purples and oranges from the sunset, not cola bottles. Close to the fort, but away from the rocks, boats are lined up for the next morning’s fishing expedition. Some daredevils brave the thrashing waves now, while other fisherfolk kickback with their kids. A few college boys from Bangalore run screaming—full-length denims and all—into the water, while a group of high school girls in hijabs roll their eyes from the shore. I find a log to sit on and stare at nothing in particular.
Back in Padanna, we take a walk around the village. A typical Kerala village is more urbanised than those in the rest of the country, and in Thekkekadu too that is the case. The houses are concrete and painted bright, but all of them have proud gardens and backyards packed with plantain, berry bushes and lemon trees. The village is flanked by the backwaters and a wide river, so every now and then a bridge appears. Thekkekadu, serene though it might be, could never pass off as a sleepy village. Red flags and a dismantled wooden stage suggest a recent political rally. Large sickle and hammer logos embedded with colourful mosaic chips on the road remind you of the legacy of communist agitations.

Everyone treats the resort like an extension of their home. And they feed their guests till they burst

Narayan, Padanna resident-cum-boatman, knocks on my door the next morning with a flask of tea. “It’s 7am. It’ll get hot soon,” he waves. In five minutes, we’re rowing in the backwaters. The first ferry is yet to arrive: at island jetties along the backwater, people wait, bathed, holding handbags and umbrellas. After twenty minutes, Narayan stops at a bank. I can hear the sea in the distance. We slosh across a shallow lagoon and walk through the backyard orchards of nine homes to suddenly arrive at a beach. This one has no name, but lest that spook the tourists, Mr Gul has named it Sandwich beach. Creepers run like a prickly, flower-studded bed all along the back of the beach, where villagers have spread out copra.
I spend all morning at this beach, gaping endlessly at the luminescent yellow crabs—one every twenty metres— scurrying just along the periphery of the waves, seeming to challenge the sea to swallow them up. Just as I think they’ve disappeared, the waves spit them out on the sand and the endless game begins again.
At lunch time, the resort is abuzz. In the outdoor kitchen area, an elderly woman cleans the fresh seafood catch. In half an hour, an equally vegetarian and non-vegetarian meal is served. Prawn masala, squid fry, crab curry, matthi molagittathu, karimeen pollichathu and oyster in a ricepuff. Aviyal, beans, bittergourd, drumstick, beetroot, just out of the stove full of curry leaves, red chillies and coconut shavings. All served with a large portion of rice, tapioca upma and a mother’s persuasion. “Chhe! Is this your capacity?” scolds Narayan when I sit back holding my stomach. Later, as I’m still immoveable on my chair, he tells me to go work it off at a Theyyam performance.

The Someswari kshetram five kilometres away is preparing for a forty-eight-hour-long Theyyam. This ritual art of northern Kerala depicts the fierce form of all gods, but especially Chamundi. Lal Panicker, a twenty-eight-year-old who would be Chamundi that night, with the elaborate headgear and red facial make-up, has been doing this since he was five. A BTech graduate, he hopes to find a banking day job, but Theyyam is his way of making sense of his world. “When my face is painted and the bells are tied to my ankles, the way my toes grab the sand, the way I feel about my presence in this place, has no match,” he says, sitting down to paint his face. “Do you know if this place’s soul is land or water? Can you decide if we are bodies or spirits? I love that we all live in a confluence.”
There is an amphibious nature to Kasargod, and especially Padanna: an easy juggle of liquid and solid, of the known and unknown, of ideology and practice. People seem to give themselves up to nature, living in its precarious balance, knowing that is how you make the most of it. The food, the diversity, the old and new struggles, all even out in the tide.

---

The Information

Getting Around
Autos and taxis are best. For tours to villages, you’ll need to take the ferries (6.30am–5pm) or walk.

Where to stay
The community-run Oyster Opera (Rs 4,750 doubles, all-inclusive; 0467-2276465,oysteropera.in) on Thekkekadu island is rustic, scenic and eco-friendly. It has nine wood-and-laterite cottages—one of them is floating on a fish pond and another is a tree house! Eat everything they serve you and go everywhere they take you. The villagers who run the resort know this place better than anyone else.
Kanan Beach Resort, in Nileshwar, Kasargod (Rs 5,500–29,250; 2288880,kananbeachresort.com), has airy north Malabar villas, most of which overlook the ocean. Ideal for large groups. The Neeleshwar Hermitage, also in Nileshwar (Rs 11,300–22,050; 2287510,neeleshwarhermitage.com) is an eco-style resort with 18 cottages and a beach restaurant.

What to see & do
Standing majestically on a rocky beach, the Bekal Fort (entry Rs 5; 8am–5pm) is the centrepiece of any trip to Kasargod district. Bekal Beach below it is spotless and 20km from the city. Near Payyanur are the Kavvayi backwaters, where you will find the popularValiyaparamba island. Sandwich beach, near Padanna, and Kappil beach, 6km north of Bekal, are also uncrowded. Bet-ween November and December, Theyyam is performed at several temples in Kasargod and Kannur.