Author Archives: justsomewifie

Kerala is India’s Tippler Country

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I read in a bbc article that Keralans have the highest consumption of booze in India. The sale of alcohol is a strictly controlled state monopoly.  But the state alcohol shops are open long hours 7 days a week.  There is always a queue outside.  I have also seen quite a few “toddy huts” on my travels.  Toddy is the local homemade tipple. It is fermented coconut sap. They tap the tree trunk near the top and put a little pot to collect the sap.  In the early evening, they climb the tree to collect it. I don’t think I shall bother trying it. 


Most of the restaurants along the beach have no licence to serve alcohol, but of course they all do.  I had my first dinner out this trip at at restaurant proudly calling itself “Kingfisher seafood corner” or something like that.  Kingfisher is the vast Indian brewery/airline company.  As I went in, the waiter pointed up to his sign and smiled. “Kingfisher” he said.  “I don’t drink” said I, and not a single bolt came from the sky to smite me.  I meant, “I don’t drink when I am on holiday in India” but that is just too many words.  As I took my seat he muttered “white wine”  in the same tone as those illegal money changers who accosted tourists in Prague back in the early 90’s.  “I’ll have a ginger lime soda please,” I answered primly.  


The beer comes in enormous bottles – a litre I think.  It is served wrapped in newspaper and the glass comes in coffee mug.  When you have poured your beer, you have to put the bottle under the table.  The lady at the table next to me allowed me to take a photograph of hers.  Cheers.




Yoga with Ludmilla, Svetlana, Heidi and Ursula

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There is yoga here twice a day.  6.45 am we shuffle up to the conference hall which has fantastic views over the Arabian Sea.  The mats are laid out on the floor.  I take my place in the back row.  That is the row for the unfit and the unpunctual.  No matter how early you arrive, Ludmilla and Svetlana are there in the front row, in the middle.  They are not young.  They are not slim.  They look like they work in personal security for Russian oligarchs and have a sideline scaring people away from nightclubs on a Saturday night. But these ladies must have been sportswomen in soviet times because no matter what pose, they can do it. They can fold themselves over like flick knives and they can tie their feet behind their heads.  Makes us stiffies in the back row feel even worse about our pathetic attempts to touch our knees or whatever.  Heidi, Ursula and friends are Swiss and German.  They are fit and bronzed and flexible.  They wear figure hugging clothes just so that we all know that they have no flab.  They have never done yoga before, but by the second day they are doing full lotus and scratching their ears with their toes. I’ve got one up on them all though.  I will not be noticed for the grace of my yoga poses, but I know the words to the sanskrit songs they sing at the beginning and the end.  And my OM is in tune.

trod upon and beaten to a pulp – the way to banana leaf ninja status

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They lure you in with those early treatments.  The relaxing massage after the long flight.  The shirodhara after the long year (and it was a very long year because I have not had shirodhara since November 2009).  And then it gets serious. Chavutti Thirumal they call it.  They hang on to a rope and massage you with their feet.  Just Beena walking up and down on me. It is supposed to make you more flexible and unblock any congested energy channels.  5 to 10 and I haven’t fallen asleep yet, so maybe it is working.


Spent some time looking up the rest of my plan to see what treats are in store.  There will be beatings with rice and powder, the pouring of warm oil, lime poultice, herbal medicines held in with banana leaf “so that the powerful medicines can penetrate deep in the brain”  The banana leaf bit comes towards the end.  



So here I am after being pounded with limes.  I was quite green.  They put limes in some muslin, and then they heat it up in oil and then they pound you with it.  As you can see from the ninja headgear, they finish off the session with some more shirodhara.  The shirodhara seems to be having an effect.  After the second one I often have nightmares and find myself angry about something.  Anyway, here I am in this beautiful place and I dreamt of the office.  That’s enough to make anyone fly into a rage.  Add to that the lack of cups for a whole 10 minutes yesterday at breakfast time.  Swiss ladies were drinking their tea our of soup bowls.  Not those cool looking things favoured by the French.  No, luggies as Burns called them. I was unable to drink my tea out of a soup bowl so I waited the ten minutes and then calculated how much my ten minutes had cost.  That figure would come in handy in my campaign. I was outraged. I spent most of the day plotting my angry campaign.  Trying to decide whether to give the Food and Beverage Manager a chance, or take it straight to the GM.  Should I email my travel agent now about this shocking state of affairs, or should I wait until I get home. At one point I was considering dragging the manager with me into town so that we could shop for cups together and he could see how easy it is to buy cups here, and how cheap they are. The letters were writing themselves in my head, but I was too engrossed in my book (The Help) to actually act on any of it.  And today, there were cups galore at breakfast time, everyone is smiling and efficient.  And I am calm.

ayurvedic ninjas

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my little hut and terrace

Finally warmed through after arriving here 2 days ago unable to remember my own name.  I have a nice little room with a private terrace and a view of the sea. This is not my first trip to an ayurvedic resort, so I was quite prepared to see people shuffling around in dressing gowns.  However, this is the first ninja ayurvedic resort I have visited.  As well as the dressing gowns which look a bit like long grey martial arts kimonos, they are wearing white bands round their heads with either white cloth, or a banana leaf covering the crown.  They also have warrior type markings on their forehead and neck.


The doctor shook her head from side to side and told me that my energy is quite well balanced and my immune system is strong.  She then set about drawing up a  programme to shift my 5% excess of one kind of energy back to where it belongs.  Fine with me as long as that programme includes shirodhara.  More about shirodhara later.  Beena and Bindhu would be in charge from now on.


In the afternoon someone knocked at my door with “medicines, Madam”  and handed me a bag of herbal drugs to be taken before and after food.  The package includes a bottle of bitter brown sludge of which 3 tablespoons 3 times daily. I have taken this stuff before.  Not this time.  It is vile.  I will not take it. I only have to decide whether to leave it unconsumed as a symbol of defiance, or tip a little down the sink each day to feign compliance.


The first “treatment” was a thumping from Beena and a subtle re-arrangement of my skeleton.  Next day, Beena and Bindhu ganged up on me and thumped me again.  When I screamed, Beena would ask “Is pain?”  I soon learn that answering yes to “is pain?” only encourages them to inflict more pain.  You have to suffer the pain to earn the shirodhara. And so, I got my shirodhara.  Warm oil is poured rhythmically on the forehead for about 45 minutes. Very relaxing.  By now it was 8.30pm.  The restaurant closes at 9, and so I had to go for dinner in the kimono and ninja head gear.  I had arrived.

some ninjas snapped unawares

Burns Night 2011 in porkandcabbageland

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Dr. Who always seems to have strange experiences in familiar places.  Burns Night 2011 was a bit like that.  Here in porkandcabbageland there are some fans who organise a Burns Night.  There is even someone who has gone to the trouble of translating Burns into the local dialect.  So, off I went, dragging along my  friend for what promised to be an interesting experience if nothing else.   


There they were, almost 300 porkandcabbagelanders with a smattering of suitably kilted Scottish Ladies with their leader the redoubtable 86 year old Ruth. She had the frilliest blouse as befits her status as chieftain of the waltzcityscottishladies.  We had not ordered haggis in advance and so we had to order from the standard bill of fare.  We had pork.  And lettuce.  The evening started with Burns songs as set by Beethoven, Haydn, Schumann, Mendelssohn and others.  Then the haggis was ceremoniously piped in by the first waltzcity pipe and drum.  Oh yes, they have their very own pipe band.  A father and son. Not Scottish.  


Our neighbours had ordered haggis and we watched them shrink as if the haggis was going to jump off the plate and wrap itself round their head and press their brains out through their ears.  The haggis looked like its normal furry cute self.  However, it was served with mashed potatoes done the porkandcabbageland way – that is to say sloppy, very sloppy, like school dinner semolina.  Turnip is not a recognised vegetable in porkandcabbageland.  There are few recognised vegetables.  So, our haggis and potato flavoured semolina dish was completed with a spoonful of sliced carrots.  Once the first forkfuls of the puddin’ race chieftain were tasted, the fear dissipated and they gobbled it up, as well they should.  


The next part of the evening was mainly Burns songs given the blues treatment and translated into waltzcity dialect. My highlight was one song done in German German, Swiss German, Waltzcitydialect and Lallans.  They have promised us a translation of Tam o Shanter for next year.  My friend went home and ordered Eddie Reader’s Burns album.