Day 50-51: Poovar Island — IndefinitelyOOO

The mediocrity of Madurai made us throw a sense of financial caution to the wind as we exited Trivandrum station and our gateway to Kerala. That’s my story anyway and I’m sticking to it.

I’d read about Villa Maya in a few places – unsurprisingly as it’s ranked as perhaps the best restaurant in India and features highly in the world rankings… Should we just check if they have a table at 3.30 on a Tuesday…? Might as well as we’re here…? It’ll probably be too late to eat at our place on Poovar Island in any case… by the time we get there…? And with those words the die was cast and half an hour later I was wrestling with a crab cracker and Jacko was eating curry out of a coconut.

We’d realised, handily, ahead of our final approach to Varkala that there was a night’s stay somewhere unaccounted for – cue last minute booking in Poovar Island (based on my vague memories of an article I’d read in the last year). We arrived in the dark after our unplanned detour for an early dinner and unable to really get our bearings enquired about anywhere nearby for well, a drink? That would be a no came the reply. No boats to the resorts? Laughter by return. At which we retired to our room to wrestle unsuccessfully with the wi-fi and then finally opt for an early night .. at 9.30pm thinking as we dozed off that maybe Poovar was a bit of a bust.

It turns out that if you go to sleep at 9.30pm you wake up at 6.30am… Having arrived in the pitch black dark it occurred that I didn’t really have any sense of where the hell we were. Aside from somewhere remote. What greeted me as I ventured onto the balcony was therefore nothing short of a wonderful surprise. We were near surrounded by water, with mangroves as far as the eye could see and that we got a closer look at after breakfast when our host unmoored his boat and took us for a tour around the utterly unspoilt surroundings.

I couldn’t think of a better pit stop ahead of our Keralan Christmas.

“Kerala is a paradise.” We’d heard those words again and again when planning this trip and so have been looking forward to getting to this lush, green coastal state. The complexities of day-and-night rail travel and a packed itinerary mean that we’ve somehow failed to account for a day somewhere and have no accommodation for one night. Gifted an extra 24 hours we do a little research and divert to Poovar Island, arriving at a remote guesthouse in the pitch black evening. Our friendly hosts smile and shake their heads at our questions about WiFi and beer; the local amenities are a boat ride away and it’s far too late for that. We take a very early night instead.

Waking at dawn we're greeted by a racket of bird calls and step out to find ourselves in the middle of the mangrove swamps. A mass of striking green vegetation crowds the view, creepers and trees, flowers and fruits. Birds of all sorts swoop and shriek or preen and dry their wings on stumps. Insects swarm in clouds while locals putter up and down the narrow waterways in canoes. Living things and growing things abound; quite a contrast from the dusty scrubland and grubby cityscapes that marked the first weeks of our adventure.

With nothing much to do but take a boat to a floating restaurant and eat fried river prawns, it’s a lovely introduction to the state Indians call Gods Own Country.