Photos Credit: S. Satish Kumar North Malabar: Beyond the backwaters |
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Whatever was Outlook Traveller doing, sending a Malayali into the Malabar hinterlands? Most ‘Mallus’ suffer from a surfeit of natural beauty and now view the backwaters, the ‘kettuvalam’ boats, and the rampant verdure with a sardonic brow. Factor in our intrinsic cynicism, the inclination to seek and find hornets in paradise, and what you get is not exactly the gushing travel writer. Up just before dawn the next day, drawing open the curtains of the cottage, I took a deep breath and forgot to release it for a while. Because there it was in front of me, the river Chaliyar, upon whose bank the Kadavu Resort (‘kadavu’ is riverside in Malayalam) stands. In the pale pre-dawn light streaked with fingers of pink, the Western Ghats rose like distant monoliths in front of me. The broad swathe of water, wreathed in thin mist, gleamed like a huge sheet of bevelled glass catching something of the silver-grey skies; out in the middle, there were two catamarans poised like a still life. And so it began, my brief but complete enthralment by the river. Ironically, the Chaliyar was not at its prettiest in this season because of the mud-melt from the Western Ghats; I was told it was a deep green gleam at all other times, complementing the palm groves on either bank. All the cottages in the resort (equipped with just about every mod-con you can think of), the suites and rooms overlook the water. And from the boat-shaped ‘Uru’ restaurant, you get a positively panoramic view. | ||||||||
This riverside resort is just the place to go with a small pile of books to read, a notebook or two to write in, for some quality time with your inner self.
Mid-morning, we were out on the river, now transformed into a fluid collage of sheer glass, the waters catching and throwing back the sunlight across the length and breadth of the river. The boatman, a laconic soul, tells us how the Chaliyar, 20 metres at its deepest point, was a major waterway before buses plied the road. Satish is charmed by the glimpse of a delightfully lopsided stone jetty, by the rust flash of a Malabar squirrel in a tree on the island we are circling, by the men in the catamarans who are dredging up sand from the riverbed. Me, I try not to stare at the dead crow, the dried coconut husks, and the used condom floating alongside. It is in the nature of the Malayali to notice such things.
By noon, the Chaliyar is like a sluggish brown anaconda. I roam the resort taking in the ozonated pool, the Jacuzzi, the gym, the Greek-style amphitheatre. Satish goes for an Ayurveda massage and comes back beaming with somnolent satisfaction. I luxuriate in the lovely coffee to be had here (not surprising, because Wayanad next door is the state’s coffee country)—rich, fragrant, thick and dark as sin.
By late evening, the river has changed colour again, and now glints steel-grey, with elongated wefts just under the surface, as if a resident Nessie is lazily swimming the length of the river. The catamarans have gone, the ghats are obscured by haze but I see a brace of white T-shirted boys rowing in perfect synchrony, like boatmen training for the snake boat race at Alappuzha to be held a few months on.
The Vythiri Resort, memorable for both its incredibly bad approach road as well as the incredibly beautiful white-throated stream that runs through it, has been taken over by a European consortium, Serena Spa, and will shortly have a state-of-the-art water treatment: herbal steam baths, a plunge in the outdoor pool, massage pavilions smack in the middle of the gurgling waters, a ‘marma’ room, the works.
Whatever was Outlook Traveller thinking of, sending a Mallu into the rainforests during the rains? Well, it was inspired thinking, let me tell you. It proved that Kerala still holds some surprises up her green sleeves, surprises that can get under the skin of even a beauty-hardened denizen of God’s Own Country.
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