I married a Malayalee

I married a Malayalee. And that means I get to travel to God's own country multiple times a year. Now, now, for those of you who are beginning to imagine me staring into a deep golden sunset from the sundeck of the family-owned kettuvellam, stop! Cochin maybe India's tourist haven, but  for me it is my in-laws place. Every Malayalee goes to their nAdu (hometown) at least once a year - for Onam, or Christmas or both. For us, a trip to Cochin is about lazing at home, and making the mandatory trip to meet every single relative in a 100-km radius. *Yawn* Here's my take on Cochin, kettuvellams and Kerala from the vantage point of a tourist turned daughter-in-law.

My husband's family home is next door to a church. That is probably because Kerala has many hundreds of them and everyone lives next to a church. If you are flying into Cochin airport (what a charming little international airport this one!), look out of the window and marvel at the swaying coconut palms and the white spires of churches towering in competition to the coconuts. Coconuts, coconut milk, coconut oil, and anything coconut - yes, the hype is not hype. Malayalees eat coconut in grated/ curried/ chopped form in every dish. (Coconut gets close competition from curry leaves for the title of most gratuitous ingredient in Kerala cuisine) And also use coconut oil for cooking. I am used to it now, and I think it is truly delicious! So much so that I like flavoring my toast with a dot of coconut oil and eating that with pineapple jam. Talk about a virgin pina colada for breakfast!

Bananas. Endless colorful, pink, red, yellow, green tall and short bananas. And the Ethakayappam or Pazham Pori at the India Coffee house in Changancherry is the best that I have ever had. Cochin Bakery in Gandhi Nagar has some yummy Unniappam - dark brown puffy crispy outsides and webby soft insides, with a complex sweetness only jaggery can give, with the occasional elaichi seed and coconut wedge *sigh*. This has definitely got to be God's own food. And all this I would not know if it wasn't for the wonderful Malayalee I married. 

The one I married is wonderful, but most Malayalee men, seem to take their right to stare at women a little too seriously. I have not faced any serious harassment perhaps because the wise one is always by my side, wherever I venture. He knows better than to leave me alone in his city. 

The drive to Changanachery from Cochin goes through some typically pretty Kerala scenery. There are vast expanses of green rice fields, flocks of ducks, winding waterways with kettuvellams floating by, and signboards with pictures of pearl spot and many other big fish next to roadside stalls with heaps of big fish. Nature is ridiculously generous in this sliver of land. If I were a tourist, I would be clicking away. As a daughter-in-law I look, and move on. It is ironic, but it is how it is.

As a young visitor (my family and I drove all around Cochin and Alleppey in a car and then a houseboat) I marveled at the richness of the land, the grace of the snake boats and the gliding backwater birds, the fresh and healthy red rice and the coconut-crazy cuisine, the ubiquitous bakeries and their surprisingly good products, the lush brush mustache of the Malayalee man in his tied up mundu, and all the proud history of the land.

After I married my Malayalee man, in a true local's style, I have not visited the Jewish synagogue, or the Matancherry palace or dined on fresh catch cooked up in a roadside stall in Fort Kochi, or roamed its spice markets, or even stepped into a boat, leave alone a houseboat. But there is another side to Kerala that I am learning about - of how every Malayalee home has wonderful produce growing in even the tiniest of backyards, of how black Syrian-style beef is blackened, of how biryani can me made with kappa and meat bones, of how the tea-stall owner in the next lane traveled to 18 countries while selling tea for 5 rupees a cup, of how tasty coconuts really are. And sadly, of how every home has shelves loaded with pictures of various children and grandchildren in different stages of growth, all living in the 'greener' pastures of ANZ and USA, leaving behind this gold mine, this lush, gorgeous and generous land beneath their feet.

The new land of smiles - Impressions from Sri Lanka

Whoever thought Thailand was the land of smiles and great hospitality obviously did not travel to Sri Lanka. The hot summer sun and the humidity of the island nation was bearable mostly due to the smiles and sweet nature of the people of the island.

Colombo's residents are very helpful, which is surprising given that it is the capital, given that the citizens of capital cities generally do not have a reputation for kindness. From the watchman to the auto (misleadingly called taxis) drivers to the people on the street, everyone wowed us. Maybe just the gentle nod and smile from the old man who walked past as we stood at the bus stop... the overwhelming speed with which the watchman put away his newspaper, rushed out of his enclosure so that he could direct us quickly to our destination... it was a pleasant surprise at every other corner.

Hotel Raja Bojun was heavily recommended, but disappointed us with cold, soulless food. The Green Cabin compensated by giving us rum-spiked Ice Coffee - what a delightful country!

Colombo had enough drama - black thunder clouds rushing menacingly over the sea in the middle of the day, with gusts of wind raising mini dust storms and tiny tornadoes... over the same train line which saw the tsunami carry off more than a thousand souls... We did not go to Peraliya - the site of the disaster. But the Colombo-Galle line is so close to the sea that one doesn't have to try hard to imagine some terrible scenarios.

Colombo to Kandy by train - for us familiar with South India's gentle hill stations - was quite a disappointment. What made it slightly better was the Tooth temple and the food in Kandy. And the amazing time we had at the Hanthana Holiday home. Lovely hosts and an Australian guest staying there made for some great company and conversation. One had converted from Buddhism to Christianity, while the other was a staunch Buddhist who had left Christianity. Christianity's definitive answers appealed to the erstwhile Buddhist; while it was that same assuredness that drove the Christian to the intellectual and experiential questioning of Buddhism.There was nothing to complain about the food and the weather either.

Our planned stay of one day at Dambulla became two days - the heat took a toll and we had to slow down. If one goes to Sigiriya, it is sufficient to go till the Ajanta-Ellora type painting gallery. The rest of it is just a climb - and nothing worthwhile to experience on top. Just leftover bricks and mortar that is well viewed on a picture from under a shady tree.

Dambulla was where I had the most expensive cup of tea in my life - about 150 INR for a really bad pot of tea - and not even real milk. Dambulla was where I also had the best cup of tea ever, for a very reasonable price. Bentota Bakehouse pleased us with its array of curry and appams (hoppers), string hoppers and the quaint Sri Lankan way of serving - you get a load of stuff on your plate and you are charged for what you eat. The curry is a separate side order. This is the way short eats are served.

We also sampled the hot stuffed rotis in Dambulla. Freshly made, from a small roadside eatery - we took a chance. And again, the same quaint way of serving. Everything loaded - and you pay for what you eat.

After all the sun and exhaustion, it was time to relax in Negombo. Touristy, with all the tourist traps. Yet there were some good things there. The Ice Bear restaurant served up a potent arrack-based cocktail. And then I had to go and have the cake soaked in arrack. Oh boy!

I cannot forget the lady at Sea Joy restaurant who took excellent care of us - giving us extra veggies and things like that! And all served up with that dazzling genuine smile.

I lost my iPhone in Lanka. I wish I could write another line about something else I lost to make it sound good, but no, none of that here. What was interesting to note was the seeming lack of press freedom. We bought all the newspapers - and I was surprised at how some of the articles were written in such a groveling fashion to the dear president.

We were mistaken for local Sinhalese wherever we went. I guess that's better than being mistaken for Tamils. I denounced my mother tongue a proverbial three times - maybe more...I have no bad or good feelings about it. It was something I did. Period. The stereotyping was evident. 'People from Bangalore are different', opined the guy checking bags at the airport. He could tell we weren't Tamils. Hmm.

Sri Lanka leaves the most amazing taste in the mouth - literally. The rich sweet pineapples, the lovely green veggies, the smiles - all cover up a country that is struggling to figure out its identity after years of being at war with itself.

Malaysia - expensive Asia

Is Malaysia a developed country? Or developing country? How can the roads be this good?

Coming from India, where depending on which part of the country you are in, you may find superb, bad, or non-existent roads, the uniform wonderfulness of the roads we experienced piqued me. I asked every cabbie we traveled with about this. I was somewhat relieved to hear them say that the country roads were not that great. But wherever tourists went, good roads went ahead of them.

I have to confess I was happy to see a few potholes when our affable cabbie took us through some short-cut country roads on our way back to the airport from Malacca.

KL is a concrete mess. A mini version of Singapore; a souped-down bird park, a watered-down aquarium, and less awe-inspiring version of everything else. But the cabbies seem to take pride in the fact that compared to their 'pangali brother' they have 'more' free speech and can drive their cars faster, well, because they have space to drive them fast. And since Singapore already had me in this love-hate tussle, I couldn't really find much to go ga-ga over KL. The views from the towers - KL Menara - or the Petronas which we thankfully missed - are what you would expect when you look through the windows of a very tall building. Well, before I wash off everything as disappointing, I have to mention that lovely hotel we stayed in - the Furama - with a lovely breakfast spread to match. The croissants are the best in the world - at least the world I know of. Buttery soft flaky cloudy  melting fragrant joy in every bite that dissolved in my greedy mouth. Ah, heaven. The view from our 16th floor window was not too bad either.

The food in Malaysia was good. For the most part. At least for me. What was tough for my fellow travellers was the omnipresent Belacan - very smelly at best and overpowering at worst. For those uninitiated to the wondrous flavours of dried fish or dried shrimp so popular in South India, the Belacan is simply intolerable. (Dried Anchovy curry is something of a religion in some foodie communities here). For those initiated, like me, it still is tough. There's only so much of the Belacan odour you can take before it just makes you go 'blech'. Vegetarians are left with green leafy soggy things, (bok choy?) non-vegetarians have huge, intimidating pieces of meat and fish to contend with - it was tough time for the folks. What was a lovely surprise was the presence of paniyaram, the all-time favorite snack of my childhood. Maybe adopted from the Chettiars who traded with these people from quite a long time ago.

The food in Melaka was very enjoyable. For the most part... you get the drift. Anyone familiar with the Goan-Portuguese style of cooking would notice the unmistakable resemblance to many of today's famous Goan curries. A sweet sour spicy mixture of goodness - with Belacan. So what if they put lady's finger in shrimp curry, somehow it works, and very well too. Gula Melaka is another amazing thing - of course, I returned with a kilo of it. The folks, however, wanted any thing that did not have Belacan. Which was nothing. So we had to hunt for fruits, with very minimal success.

Malaysia is well packaged. Truly Asia? I do not know. What I do know - a landscape made ugly by palm tree plantations, ridiculously expensive taxis, even pricier beer - makes me think I won't go back. Tumbling around late in the night, stumbling into Bukit Bintang with wonderful singers from the Philippines, the complex sweetness of gula melaka on my tongue, buttery, flaky Furama croissants, glorious rainforests - maybe I should think again.

try? Developing country? How can the roads be this good?