Given we are now out of YTT, which is already feeling like such a long time ago, I think I will try now to write about each day in turn. Mainly this is to help me remember what we did given our days are pretty full, and to make it easier to put the right photos at the end of each day. I’ll start where we left off, still in Varkala but now our little hotel “Mango Villa” in the North Cliff area of the town. 

Monday – 

Sunday night was slightly disturbed for me with an upset stomach, with which I woke up in the middle of the night quite a bit worse than when I went to bed. We got up and packed up for our check-out time of 11am, and had until 6pm to while away in Varkala. We weren’t much looking forward to the wait in the heat of the day anyway, but I was still getting quite unpleasant stomach cramps throughout the day when I ate or drank, so the hours we spent sitting out in cafes on North Cliff weren’t the most enjoyable of the trip so far. However, we did find a couple of quiet and relatively cool spots we could stay for some time, and so before long it was 5pm and time to head up to the station. 

Fortunately we were able to leave our bags at Mango Villa, so we picked them up and took a rickshaw to the station. After some consternation about which platform our train would be arriving at (luckily there were only 2), we plumbed for one on the grounds that trains seem to usually keep to the left. The guess proved correct, though we were slightly alarmed to find that our train consisted of at least 20 coaches and ours was nowhere to be seen from where we had been standing. After an uncomfortable jog down the platform, we scrambled onto the coach in the nick of time and found our seats. 

I had expected Indian trains to be hot, cramped and generally unpleasant. In fairness, the cheapest carriages do seem to be but we had opted for 2AC (meaning 2nd class with Air Con) which had reserved seats and palatial leg room. The journey to Munroe Island was only 45 minutes which passed in a flash and we were soon off at Munroturuttu station. After jumping down off the platform and crossing the railway lines on foot, which seemed to be the only way to get to the exit, we found a rickshaw who immediately recognised our host Vijeesh’s name and took us to the home stay a short drive away. We couldnt make much of Munroe Island in the dark, but the roads were bumpy and lined with palms, and most roads seemed to be accompanied by a canal. 

We were greeted at the door to the homestay by VIjeesh, a man of probably about 30 who ran the 7 rooms with the help of his sister and parents. He showed us to our room which was one of two new rooms on the roof of the building that had a panoramic view of the surrounding palms and houses. Vijeesh explained that we had arrived in the week of the local temple festival, which would have a programme of events every night culminating with a big celebration on the Saturday. In addition to this, the whole island was rigged with huge speakers every 100-200m which played chants, temple music, audio recordings of people speaking in Malayalam or Sanskrit, and at times pop music. This went on pretty much without pause between 6am-2am every day in anticipation of Saturday’s festival. 

After we dropped off our things and took a long overdue shower, we walked with the rest of the homestay’s guests to the temple to see the local boys perform a traditional dance. The pace was phrenetic for the heat and humidity of the night, and they carried on long after we left to go to bed. 

Tuesday – 

We awoke to the sounds of the temple’s audio, and went for breakfast in the communal area downstairs from where our room was. Here, VIjeesh had installed a variety of hanging chairs, hammocks and benches which made a good place to read or relax given our room, though very clean and cool, had only enough space for the double bed and the adjacent en-suite. The communal area also had a large dinner table with benches at which all meals were served. Breakfast was included, but lunch and dinner were also available as there were limited places elsewhere to eat. This meant that most meals were eaten with the other guests, most of which were staying for only a day or two. Although often the varied company was nice, the inevitable conversation where we have been and where we are going got a little tiresome after the first few renditions. 

That morning we walked out from the homestay to explore the area. Munroe Island was stunningly tropical, criss-crossed with waterways and as many dusty tracks as there area paved roads. The local people were largely very friendly, often waving at us and trying out English phrases as we walked past. We went to a small family-run cafe down the road for lunch, which served thalis (a variety of curries with rice) and fried fish wrapped in banana leaf. In the afternoon we got some much needed rest, and ate dinner as usual at the homestay. 

That evening we headed back to the temple for the local girls’ version of the traditional dance. This was interspersed by what was much like a primary school nativity except the star of the show was a little boy of about 5 dressed up as Krishna who took part in a variety of dances on the stage, some of which we was supposed to be in, and others he wasn’t but decided to join anyway. 

Wednesday – 

Wednesday morning proceeded much like Tuesday, with breakfast out on the terrace with the other guests. Breakfast throughout the week tended to be variations on the theme of coconut, banana and pancakes which were delicious (though in the mornings I did regret the lack of good coffee that was available on the island). We were feeling a little curried out by lunch and so just opted for some snacks from the local shop. 

In the afternoon, Vijeesh took us out in his canoe for a sunset tour of the island. Munroe Island is bordered by the Kallada RIver to the north, then the Ashtamudi and other lakes to the west and south. In reality, it is a spit of land, but divided from the mainland to the east by a canal. Vijeesh’s tour took us along the river for a short way, then made its way through the network of canals that run through the island itself. As we went he pointed out local flora and fauna. He was especially knowledgeable of the multitude of tropical birds on the island, which he spotted with no less enthusiasm for the fact that he must had seen them countless times in his life. At one point Ellie asked whether a fruit on the bank we were passing was a lime, only to be told it was a “suicide fruit” given how lethal it was. Foraging in Kerala would be an entirely different experience to in Hackney Wick, as it seems. 

Vijeesh had timed the trip to mean that we caught the sunset over the impressively expansive and flat-calm Ashtamudi lake. The view was stunning as the light faded, and we cruised back through the canals in the dark as locals moved about in their gardens and kitchens. We arrived back at the Homestay in time for dinner, which also followed a similar pattern of a variety of curries, boiled egg, chapatis, and other accompaniments. Vijeesh also had a supply of cold Kingfisher beers which he offered around after dinner.

Thursday – 

The following morning we were up and back on the water by 6am, though this time under our own steam in a double kayak along with another couple and Vijeesh. The double kayak took a little while to get the hang of, but before long we were paddling down the length of the Kollada river on our way back to Ashtamudi lake, this time approaching it from the north-east rather than south-east. The lake at sunrise was even more spectacular than at sunset. The calm waters and mangrove trees were host to a huge number of wading birds and seabirds, each Vijeesh pointed out with glee. We cut back inland through the island as it was waking up. We saw farmers tying up their goats on their fields, boys cycling over the bridges above on their bikes, women washing their clothes by the river side. 

Given the morning’s exertions, we spent the majority of Thursday back at the homestay. We popped out to another local cafe for lunch. Kerala is an exception in India in that it served beef, so I had this and a fried fish recently caught from the river. We headed home, and spent a lazy afternoon reading and napping in the afternoon heat. After dinner, Ellie and I played a round of chess from a tiny travel chess kit we had bought in Varkala which worked great, other than the magnets in some of the pieces attracted the others and dragged them off their adjacent squares. We called a draw after the board was left with our kings and about 3 pawns a piece, and headed to bed. 

Friday – 

By Tuesday, we had managed to drag the yoga mats back out of the backpacks after YTT, and had been doing some exercise each day. We had penned Tuesday and Fridays to do some leg exercises since both of us had noticed our poor legs wasting away with (relative) lack of use in yoga. Our leg routine did, however, wipe us out for most of the rest of the day on Friday. We opted to have lunch in the Homestay, for which we were joined by VIjeesh’s very sweet 6 year old niece, Deva. Deva taught Ellie a game of snap and they played a few rounds whilst I wrestled with the Indian Railway website to book our train out of Munroe Island for Monday. 

A couple of our friends from YTT, Gina and Mel, had arrived in Munroe Island on Friday, so we walked across to the south of the island where their hostel was to meet them in the evening. We took a little detour en route to visit a 19th century Dutch church by the lakeside which was still very much in use by the local Christian population of Kerala. In fact, it seemed to be set up for a wedding as we walked around the grounds. 

We met Gina and Mel at a restaurant in a reasonably smart but totally deserted hotel. The restaurant was cavernous and lit entirely by orange bulbs for some reason, but had only one or two other people inside. Despite this, the food was pretty good and offered a range of curries other than South Indian ones, which made a welcome change. We moved afterwards to the adjacent bar which was dark and freezing cold, but sold 660ml bottles of beer. The bar was filled with single men or groups of men so the sight of 3 women caused a relatively gentle stir, but we settled in the corner and had a great time chewing the fat of YTT with the benefit of hindsight. We parted, and Ellie and I walked the 30 minutes home in the dark, accompanied as always by the temple music blaring through the speakers up in the trees. 

Saturday – 

Saturday was festival day, and the morning was slow and sleepy in anticipation. Ellie and I took a paddleboard out on the river and had a paddle around in the morning, then walked back to the hotel we had dinner at the day before for lunch. We returned for a brief rest before getting ready to head into the festival in the late afternoon. The Homestay had accrued at this point a number of Brits or Europeans with good English that were staying more than 2-3 nights instead of 1-2, so we had a nice group with which we walked down to the temple grounds. 

The temple itself was small, but had alongside it a large field where the festivities were being held. Not much had started by the time we arrived, but it was already busy with people and the two festival elephants were enjoying their dinner before the celebrations began. We took up position on a wall at the far end of the field, where there were two huge wooden towers that could be lifted by the 4 wooden beams on which they sat. As we watched, the whole thing kicked off. The elephants precessed down the field towards the towers accompanied by (and ridden by) a number of Brahmin priests and stopped at each of the towers to bless them. Once blessed, groups of local men attempted to pick up the towers by each of the beams and carry them towards the temple which was about 300m away. This wasn’t, however, a simple process. Not only did the towers look like they weighed several tens of tonnes, but most of the men were approaching blind drunk and often rather than working together they would try to crush the men on the opposite side of the tower by lifting up their end and bouncing it up and down. 

The sun started to set on the scene. One tower was manned by 20-30 slightly less drunk men and consequently made it to the temple in about 30 minutes. Here, action was heating up too. Processions of young men with massive drums and maracas surrounded by dancing teenagers who would have looked at home in the 90s UK rave scene moved through the throng towards the temple. A two man (or man and child) show on the back of a van acted out scenes from various Hindu scriptures, all the while in the background the tower wielded by the village’s drunkest men could be seen teetering dangerously close to the overhead electrical cables. By 7pm the event continued to be in full swing, but we made our way out the complex back to the Homestay for dinner. On the way out we passed a procession of floats bearing some of the Hindu deities – Shiva, Rama, etc – who were, inexplicably, blasting techno music. These too were followed by the rave teenagers. 

We had dinner and a beer with Vijeesh back at the Homestay to debrief, then headed back into the temple grounds for the headline act – a band from Cochi that had been hired by the village’s young men clubbing together to pay the 100 000 rupees needed for stage equipment and band fees. The band, Marzi, were pretty good but given we didn’t know many of the songs and the day had been a long one, we headed back and to bed after an hour or so. 

Sunday – 

The whole town seemed hungover on Sunday, or at least all of the men. It was eerily but wonderfully quiet without the temple music playing through the speakers. We walked from the Homestay in the morning to the local juice stand where we had a purple soda drink made with grapes, chilli, lemon and soda water. On the walk home we encountered at least 2 men who were already drunk, and Vijeesh later told us that the locals tend to cure Saturday’s hangover by starting drinking at 10am on Sunday.

We ate a quiet lunch in the homestay and, at 4pm, headed out with Vijeesh and a variety of the British tourists on a flotilla of kayaks and paddleboards. We took a gentle ride up the river to the mainland heading east, and went to look at the buffalo and waterbirds in the rice paddies as the sun set. As we kayaked back in the dark, we passed what we thought were logs until they started moving and snorting. Resolving out of the dark, they were in fact a herd of buffalo being washed by their owner in the river. I risked taking my phone out with us, so I’ll put the photos below (though I didn’t get any of the swimming buffalos; it was too dark). 

We had our last meal with the Brits, and stayed for a couple of hours round the table chatting. Vijeesh told us that there were several fights by the end of the festival, with some of the culprits ending either in the local casualty (which is a tumbledown stone house without a door, see above), or in the police cells overnight. Some of the new guests turned out to be British doctors working in South London, so we had a lot in common to talk about. A few of the guests had been there for a few nights, and these we got to know relatively well. One of our favourites was Nathan, a Brit in his 40s who had been touring around India for the last 4 weeks or so on his own. He was a very endearing man with seemingly inextinguishable good cheer and enthusiasm for any activity or event. He’s the one trying to do a headstand on the paddleboard. Little Deva and Vijeesh swapped Instagram accounts with us, and we said goodbye to Vijeesh and headed to bed for our last night in Munroe Island. 

Post-script – 

In the course of writing about our first week outside of YTT, it looks like we might be doing too much to fit into just one blog a week! I will try and write one midweek and one on the weekends going forward. Watch this space. 

Until (maybe) Thursday, 

Rob xx