I had oft heard of the concept of home stays where the guests get to stay along with the hosts like a family unlike a hotel. And of late the concept has been quickly gaining ground in India too. Home stays I learnt was the ideal option to experience the authentic taste of a place, its culture, traditions.It also enables the traveler to enjoy the wonderful home ambiance and home cooked food. And it is far more economical and exciting than staying in hotels. So early this year on my trip to Kerala, I decided to experience firsthand what it is like to be at a home stay. A bit of search on the internet and I zeroed down to Gramam Homestay in Cochin as the city was familiar to me.
I got down at the Ernakulam railway station in Kerala which has train connectivity from the matro cities of India. Those who want to save on travel time, may opt for a flight to the Cochin International airport which is 45 kms from Gramam Home Stay. The Ernakulam rail head was just 14 kms away and there was a car waiting for me at the station that shortly brought me to Gramam homestay in Kumbalangi village.
What strikes you as you approach the bungalow is the bountiful lush greenery that covers the area, the coconut palms, mango and areca nut trees in the garden were like a dense natural cover to keep the sun away and so the area around the house was much cooler. I was welcomed in the traditional Kerala way and accosted by Jos, my host who owns the property. The house was actually 75 years old and built by Jos’ grandfather and overlooks a lagoon in the backwaters. The garden slopes down to the backwaters and I saw some hammocks in the shade at the edge.The two guests rooms were in one wing of the bungalow; the family live in the other. I was to stay in the Lake View room which was in the main wing of the house. The house was remodeled by Jos and as we entered I was impressed by the cleanliness of the place.
The room was a spacious and airy and had a mosquito-netted double bed.There were old wooden shutters, patterned wall hangings and some lovely touches: antique furniture, luggage racks made of bamboo, old mango pots converted to bed lamps and wooden stags’ heads!.The bathroom had modern plumbing and western style toilets.Although the room was not air conditioned, thanks to the shade provide by the surrounding palms, it was never too hot. On the first night, I left one of the ceiling fans on, but in fact I found it too cool at night, so I asked Jos, the owner, to provide me with some blankets, which he promptly supplied.
Since I had arrived late for lunch, in the afternoon I was served tea and banana fritters. For dinner, Lyma, Jos’ wife made fish Moilee, a Kerala specialty steamed with coconut milk and spices. I ate it along with okra; soft, lacy pancakes made with coconut and rice flour; and finger-length bananas.The food was simply delicious. Lyma was an excellent cook and I fell in love with the seafood curry and rice, prawn stirfy, fish moley and vellayappam (pancakes), avoli fry, Kerala chicken curry with chapathi or biriyanis.
The next morning as I sat in the porch watching the birds and squirrels in the garden, a toddy tapper turned up and climbed up one of the coconut palms and brought down a large vessel filled with toddy.Toddy is the sap from the flowers of coconut buds, a slightly alcoholic liquor that begins fermenting within an hour or two. I had tasted toddy earlier and was keen to taste it again. So I approached the toddy tapper even as Jos himself joined me and we both had a glass of the sweet liquid. It was one of the singular pleasures of a home stay in Kerala!
During the day, I explored historical sites and spice shops around Fort Kochi’s Jewish quarter where 14 Jewish families still live, descendants of people who migrated from Jerusalem 500 years before the time of Christ. Later, I watched a group of fishermen using big, Chinese-style nets that they lowered and raised from the water teeter-totter style, using rocks as counterweights.
One day, Jos took me to meet his neighbors, the Neduveli family — Shani; his wife, Jose; and their son, Anu.We drove to a grassy dike in the middle of the rice paddies, then walked for about a quarter mile and spotted a thatched hut.The family built the house from coconut wood and palms.Shani and a helper cast their net three times and caught a half-dozen white prawns — not a large catch, but enough for Jose to fry in coconut oil spiced with chili and turmeric and fresh onions. We ate them with a dal of yellow lentils and drank sweet, milky tea spiced with cardamom.It was one of the best meals I had in a long time and the hospitality of Shani and his family far exceeded the hospitality of a five star hotel.In the evening Jos arranged for a ayurvedic massage by a trained masseur. They also had facilities for ayurvedic treatments by qualified physicians.There was a free broadband internet connection too that I used a couple of times only to check some emails.Jos also arranged for a caoe trip through the enchanting backwaters on one of the evening and it was surreal experience to watch the sunset over the backwaters.
I also loved to ride the bicycle that Jos had arranged for me along narrow tracks alongside the water. meet village people on their way home from work, see the fisherman cast his nets and then sit by the water side and watch the sunset.In the evening as I sat along with hosts enjoying the lovely supper and chatted with them, I felt right at home.
