Christmas in Kerala

We headed off to Kerela from Madurai to meet up with Ed's dad Tony and his partner Sue for Christmas and New Year. We need to think of a better way to refer to Sue, because saying 'Ed's dad and his partner' makes it sound like he's gay, although Sue does sometimes question how comfortable Tony was with courting the pink pound when they had the pub It was so amazing to see family after 13 months! It was not so fun the next day after 2 Kingfisher beers each making us feel rotten. We hadn't drank alcohol for a month or more and Kingfisher is hardly a nice beer. They put glyceril in it or something, to stop it going off. My head was pounding.

At least we werent staying at the exclusive resort below.

It was to be 3 weeks of well earned relaxation, sun and Ayurveda in and around Kovalam, a fishing village turned tourist resort town (well, what indians would like to think amounts to a resort anyway) just south of the state capital Trivandrum.


The Indian take on Christmas was pretty interesting. We had heard that there would be Christmas celebrations of some description because of the sizable Christian presence in the region, but didnt know what to expect. In a typically Indian way, religeous tolerence shone through and Christians, Hindus and Muslims alike were all happy to be excited about it being Christmas. Any excuse to have a bit of a party. The main feature was star shaped paper lanterns put up outside nearly every church, house, shop and restaurant.

Curried fish for Christmas dinner was a first for most of us

(Ed had prawn vindaloo one year apparently) This freaky Santa and his pals worked the beach front restaurants with some amazing freestyle carol singing, featuring traditional tunes with a new Indian twist on the lyrics.

Just a bar of Dairy Milk brought out from the UK was enough for me to feel like all my Christmases had come at once.
The beautiful beaches were only a short walk, past the odd cow away, and were populated by fishermen plying their trade and mobs of holidaymakers swimming fully clothed.

I got to indulge in my favourite new past time, taking photos of sunsets without any real notion of what I'm gonna ever do with them.

It looks like Tony may have had some problems with an Asian squat toilet but actually it was just one of the many peculiar Ayurvedic treatments that Tony and Sue experienced.

This one was to reduce swelling and remove bruising (Tony's ankles are knackered from footy injuries). This was actually one of the least 'invasive' treatments that Tony went through, but i will not embarrass him with too many stories of herbal oil being inserted into various orifices. As bizarre as the treatments appeared, the results were amazing and Tony and Sue are certainly converts to this ancient Indian medicine. Sadly the resident doctor at baker's resort had some kind of personality disorder; charming the pants of Tony and Sue and giving them a 2 week course of treatment with bells and whistles on, but took a dislike to me and Nicky and was quite surprisingly rude and tried cheat us out of money. More bizarre still were the ritual dance performances we watched a few times at the cultural centre next door. Kathakali is the really famous dance of the region, but we watched Thayyam and some other one I cant remember the name of. The dancer wears an outlandish outfit and, along with drummers, recite ritual songs which describe myths and legends. Sadly the videos that I've uploaded show the weird posturing and screaming, but not the crazy eye movements. You will have to ask us for a rendition.

Check out this selection of videos

Beaker from the muppet show on harmonium
- click for amazing rendition of 'slick' Rick Astley

A day trip to Trivandrum finally gave us a ride in an Ambassador car after months at enviously looking at them from the back of auto rickshaws.

Crossing the road was a tricky business

The main prize in this draw somehow didnt tempt us to buy a ticket, so we spent time shopping

(Ed took some persuading not to buy the world's biggest tiffin box.

His loves curry so much, that he probably needs one that big for his lunch)

and drinking coffee at the really very special Indian Coffee House.

Ed insisted I carry my purchases on my head like a local

A mention also needs to go to the finest curry any of us have ever had at the 'High Class Veg Restaurant' down the road from there. Ed does say that the michelin starred Tamarind in Mayfair was better, but it cost 100 pound a head not 100 rupees a head.

Having narrowly avoided an 'Elephant Festival' scam, that was actually a trip to an elephant prison in a ropey Ambassador, we hired a taxi with genuine AC (not just windows that opened) to the southern tip of India where 3 oceans meet, and it would seem alot of the country's poorer inhabitants congregate.

The drive along the coast past endless paddy fields to Kanyakumari was lovely and there was a real sense that we were somewhere special geographically, but it was hard to take it in whilst being constantly targetted by beggers, hawkers and child pickpockets.

The Gandhi memorial was sadly uninspiring. So much so that we were more impressed by this dazzling white church were predcitably I got mobbed by kids asking for the one-two-three of 1 rupee, no, 1 toffee, no, 1 pen, no

A trip to the Palace complex at Padmanabhapu gave us a familiar feeling of exploitation, with the entrance fee being 20 times more for us than locals. It was really impressive but the inflated price took away from the enjoyment of our visit.

We thought for a moment that maybe the entrance fee, that was the equivalent of a nights accomodation, might actually have been for accomodation but it was wishful thinking

An impressive school uniform

This lady was lovely and informative, and brilliantly small

This sign meant very little to the many graffiti artists scratching their names into the walls of the 400 year old building. Indians seem to have a remarkable lack of respect for their surroundings.

The cleanest toilets in India

A shave on Boxing Day came as a shock to Chuckito Norris fans everywhere