The Cutlery Chronicles: Kerala

Showing posts with label Kerala. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 January 2015

Week 3: INDIA - Kochi → Allepey → Kollam → Madurai

Image of the week: sunset in Madurai (more images at end of post)
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Where in the world

Two nights in Kochi. An hour taxi journey further south to Allepey where we spent one night in a B&B before embarking on a houseboat for one night. The boat took us down to Kollam where we stayed for two nights.

We then took our first overnight train to Madurai in the state of Tamil Nadu, where we stayed for one night.

Thoughts

My initial impressions of Kochi - the major port city on the west coast of India - was disappointing. The beachfront is veiled by a layer of litter, a lot of it. Even Chowpatty Beach in Mumbai had a lot less than this one. There's a promenade to stroll down but I just couldn't get past the crap that was everywhere, and it made me angry. India would be so much more beautiful than it already is if it could sort out the problem of the all-pervading, ubiquitous rubbish. There are rarely any bins around, certainly no binmen to speak of. It's a great shame.

But all was not lost. Move away from the waterfront and into the town and Kochi is quaint and entirely charming. It retains its colonial character and old-world charm, seen in the narrow stone-paved lanes and old colourful Dutch and British bungalows, cafés and book shops. It's possible to have a languid stroll, then stop for a coffee - something us Europeans are so good at and a pastime not easy to indulge in the chaotic towns and cities of India. There were also a lot of Westerners in Kochi, the most I've seen so far in the country.

If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, it would be nothing short of criminal to leave before taking a slow boat through Kerala's backwaters. I'd heard and read about them during my travel research, and well before. Kerala is known as 'God's own country' and it's not difficult to see why.

These waters are flanked by a northern entry point (Allepey) and a southern point (Kollam). We took an overnight houseboat from the former to the latter. Accommodation wasn't luxurious but it was adequate. But then you're not on it for the room.

The waters are fringed with bowed palm trees leaning over the canals and rivers like flowers towards the sun. Eagles circle overhead, occasionally dropping to the water to dip their talons in, before rising again to enjoy their catch on a nearby branch. Bright red and blue dragonflies the size of small birds dart about, momentarily pausing mid-air, then continuing on in a different direction. The electric blue and dazzling orange flash of flitting kingfishers catch the corner of your eye, flying alongside the boat then perching on overhead electricity wires. Storks and herons wade slowly in the shallows, heads bent, scouring the surface for the ripples of dinner.

The banks are dotted with small villages where the rhythm and routine of everyday life for the people that call these waterways home can be observed. The cathartic sound of the gently chugging boat engine was intercepted by the smack of wet fabric slapping against stone as women washed clothes in the water. Children ran out of their homes to stand and wave as our boat went by, joined by the adults in tow.

Everyone waves in Kerala, they're a happy bunch. We waved back to them all, feeling a bit like royalty whilst doing so.

backwaters between Allepey and Kollam
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Madurai is a flourish of colourful buildings, people in religious dress, roadsides dotted with small shrines around which people light candles, and women selling strings of flowers for husbands to take home to their wives. Slick jewellery shops and polished fashion stores stand out conspicuously against the more rudimentary retail outlets that make up the rest of the bustling streets.

There are street food stands selling a lot of fried things, and the aroma of freshly ground coffee mixes with incense and flowers and diesel fumes and the occasional waft from a sewer.

The kids gather round practising the English phrases they've learnt at school - where are you from, what is your name, nice to meet you - then fall over themselves in a fit of shy giggles when you respond and take a picture of them. The urge to stow one of them in my backpack is strong - they are so damn cute.

children in Madurai
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The best things I ate this week

What to eat in Kerala

Houseboat thali lunch. I featured a thali meal in the last week's post in Wayanad, but this was a show-stopper and deserves recognition.

The dishes included were typical to Kerala: sambar, okra cooked with garlic, onions and mustard oil, mixed vegetables, bitter gourd, cabbage, beetroot and curd, pineapple and curd, spiced and grilled chicken, piping hot rice, and fresh-from-the-fryer poppadoms. All this was for two *mops brow*. Received on an overnight houseboat cruise with www.southernbackwaters.com

Payasam. It’s slowly cooked milk reduced to the thickness of double cream and set with vermicelli and cardamom. I've found it's the dessert of choice to accompany thali meals in the south. Very comforting. Came with the above.

Pazham pori or ethakkappam. A type of nalumani palaharam (tea time snack). It's ripe bananas fried in a sweet cumin and turmeric batter, and here served with a masala chai. This was also provided on the houseboat, as if we could possibly be hungry after the endurance test that was the above lunch. I understand this treat is a weakness for most Malayalees - I can see why.

Allepey chemeen manga curry. Prawns (chemeen) stewed in raw mango (manga), coconut and turmeric. With shallots, green chillies, ginger, garlic, chilli powder, coriander powder, fenugreek, mustard seeds curry leaves.

Ashtamundi meen curry. Ashtamundi Lake is the second largest lake in Kerala, and this fish curry will have different names across the state.

It's cubes of fish (depending on the catch of the day - often karimeen which has black spots), simmered with shredded coconut, tamarind juice, chillies, garlic, ginger, coriander powder, turmeric, fenugreek, curry leaves, and with mustard seeds and shallots. Both this and the above curry were had at ITC WelcomHotel Raviz Ashtamudi Hotel in Kollam.

houseboat thali lunch, Kerala

from top left: payasam, pazham pori, Ashtamundi meen curry, Allepey chemeen manga curry

Street food must-eat

Street food in Madurai

Saying goodbye to the state of Kerala, we moved east into Tamil Nadu. Our first stop was Madurai, reputedly south India's dosai capital. Taking full advantage of this status, dinner for our single night here was at Ayyappan Dosai Kadai (Pandiya Vellalar Street), recommended by locals and regarded by some as the city's uncrowned dosai king.

Dosai - generally known as dosa in the UK - are thin griddled pancakes made with a fermented batter of ground rice and black lentils.

This is street food in the sense the food is cooked by the side of the road, but due to the nature of the accompanying sloppy chutneys and sambar, it needs a banana leaf and a flat surface to tackle, so people eat seated inside.

dosai in Madurai at Ayyappan Dosai Kadai
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This particular place owes its popularity to the 25 variations Mr. Karthikeyan provides, and the fact that they are very good. The shop is small, with the unflattering flourescent strip-lighting that illuminates so many of the best places to eat in India, elbow-to-elbow seating, and a cooking station that has almost certainly never seen a scouring brush.

Mr. Karthikeyan has six dosai on the go at any one time. They arrive on the table straight from the griddle and scalding hot. From the handful we sampled, my favourite was the mushroom, with cumin, fennel, mustard seeds and the fantastic tangy chutneys. I think this was the first time I've come across mushrooms in India.

When you've had your fill of savoury (there's also onion, cauliflower, paneer, egg, potato - a lot more), don't dare leave before you close with the sweet dosai. It's made with podi (a ground spice powder), jaggery (unrefined cane sugar) and ghee. It tastes like French toast, with crunchy caramelised sugary bits. This is the only place that does a sweet dosa, says Mr. Karthikeyan. I believe him.

Here's a little more about this place from @EatingAsia.

dosai in Madurai at Ayyappan Dosai Kadai
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Did you know?

India's cashew nuts. India is the largest producer, processor and exporter of cashews in the world. They export cashew and cashew-based products worth $1billion each year, and Kerala is the biggest producer in India. Big business.

What are backwaters? What actually are Kerala's backwaters and why are they there (a question I realised I didn't know the answer to as we cruised along them at the leisurely pace of poured molasses)?

They're an interlinking chain of brackish lagoons and lakes that lie parallel to the Arabian Sea coast (known as the Malabar Coast).

This labyrinthine network includes five large lakes linked by both manmade and natural canals and is fed by 38 rivers; the entirety of it extends half the length of the state of Kerala.

Its presence is down to the combined processes of soil erosion from the uplands during the monsoon rains, the constant beating of the sea, and humans getting in nature's way.

The heavy rains eroded the topsoil of the Western Ghats and hundreds of streams and rivers carried the soil down to the seabed. Fast forward a few centuries and this deposited soil on the shore has led to the formation of these world-renowned marshes and backwaters. With such a unique setting, where freshwater meets seawater, you can expect a pretty awesome ecosystem, and the wildlife to match.

And crikey, isn't it spectacular.

the backwaters of Kerala
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My insider tips

Soap - your best friend in India. You're never too far from a tap in India. They're at train stations, in the most rudimentary of restaurants, and even attached to water tanks on streetside food shacks. If there is a place selling food, a tap where locals wash their hands before they eat it will be close.

India can feel pretty grubby at times, and because there's a lot of eating with hands, it's important to keep them clean. When people get 'Delhi belly', it's often down to contamination from bacteria and filth from hands, rather than anything being wrong with the food itself.

These taps rarely have any soap. So my tip, and something I've found to be very useful, is to keep a small bar on you. Always wash your hands thoroughly before you eat, and you may well stave off the gurgle guts, as we've managed to do so far *touches wood*.

Also toilet paper. Always keep a roll on you as the public toilets don't have them - locals rinse with water instead.

Highlight / Lowlight

Highlight. This was the evening and following morning of the overnight houseboat trip. The boat parked up at a little village along one of the waterways called Kovilthottam, and the three crew members told us to get off and walk towards the beach to watch the sunset as the chef prepared dinner. That was a spectacle in itself.

beach sunset at Kovilthottam, Kerala
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Back at the boat we switched off all the lights and laid on our backs. We were near enough to the sea to hear the waves crashing in the distance, but far enough that it didn't drown out the night chorus from the crickets and grasshoppers. There was the distant murmur and laughter of conversation between old friends as people settled down for their evening meal by the water's edge.

Once the sun had completely gone, I noticed a pulse of green light somewhere in the dark. I initially thought it was in the distance, then got up to take a closer look and realised it was a glowing fierfly on a nearby leaf. Then there was another, then another. I've never seen fireflies before, so I was pretty excited about that.

We woke up to the pink-grey sleepy haze of early morning light, and watched an otter run across the path adjacent to the water. Groups of men were walking along the bank to and from the temple close by for morning prayers, smiling and waving as they passed us basking in the magic of this time of day. It felt like a stolen moment - peaceful, serene - pretty special.

Lowlight. We had our first experience of an overnight sleeper train, from Kollam to Madurai, which as a whole, was a lot better than we expected. Apart from a few difficulties, and ignoring the onboard rat which I thankfully didn't see, but Matt did.

pretend-sleeping on the train

We got on at 2am to a pitch black carriage which we had to feel our way through to find our seats - in silence so as not to wake everyone sleeping - whilst trying to negotiate two huge bags through the narrow corridor.

We found our bunks, in a compartment shared with two others. With just the light from a phone, we fumbled about until we eventually found the sheets provided and made up our beds, one above the other.

The floor space wasn't huge, so Matt had to put one of the bags on his bunk and lean against it. After a few sweaty minutes trying to be as quiet as we could, we were settled and ready to knock out. Execpt, that was, for the very overweight man in one of the bunks next to us, with snoring that sounded like a wild boar being smothered, then drowned.

It was the kind of noise that competed with the enormously loud train engine, air conditioning and rickety rattling of the carriages combined, and won. His wife was in the bed above him, and was dead to the world. I can only imagine she has, over the years, become immune to this congested, gasping, reverberating monstrosity, or she's deaf.

With noise-cancelling headphones and music blasted to as loud as our eardrums could handle, this man was still the only thing we could hear. Needless to say, we got no sleep, and had to make up for it when we got to our hotel in Madurai.

Next week

A couple of days in Pondicherry, moving onto Chennai (formerly Madras), then revisiting the alluring chaos that is Mumbai.

Postcards

Kochi

children in Kochi

Backwaters between Allepey and Kollam

backwaters between Allepey and Kollam

Madurai

street scene in Madurai

religious dress in Madurai

shrine and temple in Madurai

street scene in Madurai

street vendor in Madurai

Muslim children in Madurai

Sunday, 4 January 2015

Week 2: INDIA - Bangalore → Mysore → Wayanad

Image of the week: kids on their school bus, Mysore (more images at end of post)

Where in the world

A flight to Bangalore where we spent one night (more of a stopover), then a two hour train to Mysore for three nights. We then left the state of Karnataka and moved further south into Kerala.

There was a two hour bus ride from Mysore to Wayanad where we stayed for two nights, then a seven hour overnight bus to Kochi.

Thoughts

Bengalaru (I much prefer its former name of Bangalore), is slick and high-tech. Huge billboards advertise the latest apartment complex to have been built, with names like 'Chartered Beverly Hills' and 'Utopia Layout'. People drive cars that haven't been battered and scuffed into next week, the roads are wide, well paved, and people stick to their lanes. It's easy to see why it's known as the 'Silicon Valley of India' - everyone looks like they've just come from the office.

We didn't get enough time to explore and with hindsight, I would have spent one night less in Mysore and one more here - I hear the food scene is pretty great. But then where in India isn't it.

Then there's Mysore, where sarees are brighter, skin is darker, smiles are bigger, and food is hotter. It's like the whole place has been tuned to high contrast. If this is textbook south India, then it's my kind of India.

I had my first proper encounter with Indian flowers in Devaraja Market. I'd heard about their potency and seen strings of them adorning the hair of the local women, but I had yet to experience them on this scale.

What must have been a bazillion pristine flower heads were tipped out of great delivery sacks and sold on in huge amounts to customers for weddings, parties, celebrations. Lotus, jasmine, roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, marigolds, more. Combined, the aroma was intoxicating and almost overpowering. There must have been tonnes of them.

Indian flowers in Devaraja Market, Mysore

Indian flowers in Devaraja Market, Mysore
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Wayanad is a district in the state of Kerala, known as 'God's own country', green with forests and plantations and the tall and dead straight thin trunks of palm trees. All the spices we love in Indian cooking thrive here thanks to the altitude and soil - ginger, cardamom, cloves, pepper, nutmeg, turmeric, vanilla, as well as swathes of tea and coffee bushes, bananas, and avocados that Indians don't really like and so are left to the monkeys.

Some days dawn to heavy mists rolling in, with moisture condensing on leaves and dripping as the sound of rain. Birds with bright colours flash across your path from one tree to another, and their are wildlife sanctuaries with elephants and tigers and indigenous hill tribes. Swoon.

from top left: cloves, ginger, pepper, coffee beans

The best things I ate this week

What to eat in Mysore

Thali. Thali meals are found all over India and are comprised of a selection of different dishes, this one being vegetarian and reflective of Andhra cuisine (hot and heavily spiced).

In the south they're often served on a banana leaf. This one included: vegetable fry (potatoes, cabbage, carrots), daal, tangy lime pickle, fresh yellow cucumber chutney, sambar (lentil based veg stew), spicy rasam (a South Indian soup with tamarind as a base), poppadom, curd and piping hot rice.

We had three free top ups of everything - the guy keeps coming round with it all and dishing out more. Each meal was 90 rupees, about 90p. This was also our first attempt at eating rice with a hand (see more on that below) - I think we did pretty well.

Meal had at RRR Hotel restaurant on Gandhi Square in Mysore, recommend by some local foodies.

Majjiga mirapakaya. Green chillies soaked in buttermilk, sun-dried, then deep-fried. They're crispy, salted, and very hot. Entirely addictive, and should these be matched with a cold beer, you have something quite special. These came with the above thali meal and are a typical Andhran accompaniment.

Aakki roti. A rice pancake unique to the state of Karnataka. It had onions, green chillies, grated coconut, coriander, cumin and also dill, which seemed unusual but was very good.

Masala abode. Deep fried spiced lentils and dillweed patties.

from top left: thali meal, majjiga mirapakaya, aakki roti, masala abode

Street food must-eat

Street food in Mysore

Dry gobi. There is a strip of street food vendors in Mysore called Chat Street on Krishna Vilas Road. One of the most sought after dishes from here is dry gobi - cauliflower florets coated in a spicy red sauce (curd, chilli powder, garlic, ginger, curry leaves), deep fried, served with a squeeze of lime, raw onions, and fried chillies. 30p for a plate. Excellent.

The people to get them from is father and son team Abid and Usman. The duo recently won the Best Street Food Award at the Oggarane Dabbi, a cookery competition organised by Zee Kannada, a regional channel.

dry gobi from Chat Street, Mysore

Local lingo

Verum peda \verum pedda\ - it acts as an exclamatory remark on something great

Usage:
- How was your meal?
- Verum pedda

Roots in the Malayalam language spoken in Kerala.

Did you know?

There are indigenous hill tribes in Kerala called the Paniyan people. Our guide for one of the days in the district of Wayanad is one of the very few who can speak their language, one which is only vocal and has no written word.

Because of his ability to communicate with them where others can't, he has unrivalled access to their communities.

We walked with him a little while into the forest and came across a family in one of these villages. They lead a primiative and simple life of mud huts, no electricity, and spring water gathered from a local stream.

The Paniyan people don't know how old they are as they don't use calendars or have documentation. The woman gradually increase the size of their ear piercings over time by stuffing them with rolled up leaves, significant in their culture. It's by the size of the hole in the ear lobe that an estimate of age is made.

They earn money by picking tea and coffee, with which they buy rice. If they haven't quite earnt enough, they supplement the rest of their diet with what they hunt and gather from the depths of the forest.

The picture below is of the matriarch of the family - a great face. The other is of their home - a very solid structure with a floor of dried cow dung. Pitch black but very cool inside.
The house is made up of two areas, one for living and one for sleeping and cooking, and three generations live in this modest home. The woman's daughters were too shy to come out, but the grandchildren did. As we were leaving, the three-year-old picked up a hoe and set to work on a patch of earth.

Our guide was fantastic - Sabu from www.wayanad-naturetours.com

a lady from the Paniyan tribe, Kerala

a Paniyan house, Kerala

My insider tips

How to eat rice with your hand. Rice is a staple in India, but becomes increasingly prevalent the further south you travel. Eating Indian food with your hands when bread is involved isn't too tricky - tear a piece off, scoop up some gravy and you're on your away. But eating with your hands when rice is involved is a lot trickier.

Through observation and practice, the trick is to combine rice with enough gravy to make it come together, but not too much that it becomes slop. Use your finger tips to rotate a mound of the mix on the plate until you get something you can sort of handle, pick up and pop into your mouth.

Etiquette dictates you wash your hands before eating, and you only use your right hand to handle the food. Expect to end up with rice all over your fingers, which seems to be the norm. When you're done, there will be basins at the back of the restaurant to wash your hands - you rarely get given serviettes.

Highlight / Lowlight

Highlight We had spent the day being driven around the district of Wayanad in a jeep with zero suspension that required a titanium strength sports bra to endure. Body broken and brain rattled, we finished off with a safari at Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary in the north of the district.

Driving around on tracks that had our arses coming off the seats by a good six inches, our guide spotted something from the corner of his eye, turned back to look behind the car and shouted 'elephant!'. There stood a pregnant female, grazing right by the track, with three more just behind her.

I asked if we could turn the enormously loud engine off but the vehicle must be kept running during elephant sightings, should it take a turn and start charging. 'Tigers no problem. Elephants - very dangerous,' said our guide. Seeing an asian elephant in the wild - pretty damn cool. And worth the bruised backside.

Lowlight We had to fly the day the Air Asia flight went missing. Tragic news at any time, but particularly unsettling when you intend to take quite a few flights over the coming months. It made for a less than pleasant wait in the airport lounge.

There was also a small bomb blast in Bangalore the night we arrived. Low intensity the news said, but one person who was walking past at the time died from their injuries.

pleased about the roadside picnic

The lowest point of this week though, was the overnight coach from Wayanad to Kochi. After waiting three hours for it by the side of a main road whilst setting up a makeshift roadside picnic to get some dinner inside us, the whole time inhaling black exhaust fumes from every chugging auto rickshaw and dilapidated local bus on its last legs, we had in that time forgotten to take our travel sickness pills.

Cue a seven hour journey sitting at the back, the first half of which was spent negotiating hairpin bends and feeling every steering wheel movement of a vehicle that was travelling too fast for the load it was carrying. We both felt as though we were about to see our dinner for a second time that evening for the duration of the journey. Add to this the fact we were caked in a day's worth of sightseeing sweat and dust, and you have the makings of a very uncomfortable journey.

We arrived at Heavenly Homestay at 4am to a wonderful couple who gave us the gift of a spotless room, a hot shower, and told us breakfast would be at whatever time we chose to get up. It felt like I'd been waiting to get clean and into bed for a week - it felt so good when I did.

Next week

A day in Kochi, one night on a houseboat through the backwaters of Allepey disembarking at Kollam, then onwards to the corner of India that is forever France, Pondicherry.

Postcards

Mysore