Backwaters & Beach

Descending from the hilly forests of Periyar we entered the world of the Kerala Backwaters. This maze of rivers, canals, lakes and paddy fields is a truly unique landscape where life revolves around the water from fishing, farming, washing & drinking to travelling.

Villages, towns, schools, churches, temples & houses seem to exist on small parcels of land and everywhere is the most glorious variety of shades of green, brighter than you can imagine. Sailing on a converted rice barge we entered a world of calm as soon as we stepped aboard and were greeted by the crew with a fresh fish lunch. Gently moving along the waterways the quieter pastimes of dozing, lounging and reading took over interspersed by the odd game of carom. After a evening sumptuous feast, with a chorus of frogs in the background, we lay back on the mats to gaze at the night sky and watch the haphazard trails of enormous fireflies. Do not miss the chance to do this, even one night is well worth it!

If you are in the vicinity of Alleppey at the start of August it may well be that you will coincide with the Nehru Cup Snake Boat Races. These huge canoes are propelled by over a hundred rowers each, with drums beating and flags flying, and village, town or club honours are cherished. Visit the region at any time of year and you can see these leviathans hauled up on land in their own shelters or being worked on ready for the next challenge.

Leaving the Backwaters behind and unsure if we could be more relaxed we headed to the beach and the lovely Marari Beach Resort. What a way to finish off a trip to this part of India!

Set on the coast north of Alleppey, amidst a fishing village, the resort has beautiful mature gardens with direct access onto a beautiful white-sand beach. Accommodation is in spacious local style bungalows, some with their own pools, and open air bath/shower rooms. There is a huge pool, large ayurveda centre and open air restaurant serving delicious ranges of Keralan dishes. There is a club-house with games, library and TV (no TVs in rooms) set in a 200 year old building and a range of sporting activities from volleyball and badminton to tennis.

It is beautiful and it is luxurious but what really made it stand out was the incredible friendliness of the staff and the total dedication, in a low key way, to the wellbeing of the local environment. Every tree is labeled and the resort is almost 100% carbon-neutral with its recycling, composting, worm-farm, water-collection, water-recycling, vegetable garden, butterfly garden, fruit trees and packaging of all products. In-house naturalists are on hand for bird watching tours, village walks, butterfly hunts or just to explain the vegetation and trees. They will soon find out if one of the family is interested and get you involved as my sons found out when they were enticed out of the pool to help release a ‘captured’ rat snake into the vegetable garden! This really is a special place and we were all very sad to leave it and our friends behind.

Backwaters of Kerala – August 2009

With family connections to India, and having visited it many times over the last 20 years, I could not believe my luck when we all agreed to have our summer holiday there. My sons, Sidney (9) and Frank (8) have travelled quite a lot around the world but it has always been to first world destinations and despite a liking for Chicken Korma and Bombay Mix I was not convinced that they knew what they were in for. I did know that the last time my wife Christa went to India she had cut her trip short as a result of sickness and the hassle of the busy northern cities – there were no fond memories there. It was however too late for everyone to back out when the comfortable Jet Airways flight touched down in Kochi and the warm tropical heat enveloped us. I needn’t have worried as it was smiles and laughs all round and they stayed with us throughout our adventures over the next two weeks!

We went out at the end of August and followed the route of the new amended Backwaters of Kerala trip. Visitors are often worried about travelling to Kerala in the summer months, and maybe we got lucky, but I had had the same experiences before and nobody should be put off by the weather. Yes it is hot all day and night long, humidity is as high as you can get and the sun is very, very strong indeed but the rain did not really affect us at all. Despite seeing some dramatic electric storms in Madurai the umbrella stayed pretty much redundant and while we had to negotiate the odd landslides in the mountains caused by earlier rains the only impact on our plans was that the views clouded over in the hills as the day wore on. The monsoon is actively welcomed in India and combined with the fact that the great Keralan festival of Onam runs through August everyone is actually in a pretty happy and welcoming mood.

Kerala, the Hills and Madurai

Our trip was 2 weeks starting and finishing in Kochi, the great spice trading port and cultural melting pot on the Arabian Sea. It was however pretty clear that when you are travelling with 2 boys the historical background to the region and the finer details of the Hindu holy pantheon were always going to play a very poor second fiddle to elephants, numbers of people on a motorbike/in a rickshaw, mangoes, Keralan Martial Arts, snakes, volume of car/truck horns, swimming pools and the suitability of any given road journey for a Top Gear Challenge.

Elephants were always a joy to see and leaving very early one morning to drive to a training camp imagine our glee on spotting 5 walking slap bang through middle of Kochi (for Mahatma Gandhi Road think Oxford St) carrying their food. Amazing! One hour later we were in the waters of the Periyar River helping to give them a wash down with coconut husks and then watching them being fed their breakfast. In Madurai we got ‘blessed’ by one, we saw them

wild in Periyar Tiger Reserve (including a 10 day old babe tucked away in the middle of a herd)

and then we rode them and bathed with them again later in Thekkady – a power shower with a difference! We even got to feel the belly of a mother to be, 20 months into her 2 year gestation. Massive, quiet, terrifying, gentle, awe-inspiring, swaying – lots of different emotions each time we came across them and they always caused a smile.

The mountains in Munnar and Thekkady regions were stunning with thickly vegetated hillsides and gorgeous views or the beautifully rounded contours of the tea plantations. It was cooler up there, but never cold, and we went searching for the elusive and endangered Nilgri Thar (mountain goat) in Evarikulam National Park. On cue a magnificent male appeared on a ridgeline and showed us his profile before we headed back downhill to try out the local chocolate and see how tea was grown, harvested and processed – never before had the boys thought sweet chai tasted so good. There is always something to see when on the move in India and the views among the Western Ghats were no exception. While the hills on the Kerala side rise gently up through spice and tea plantations on the Tamil Nadu (east) side there is a steep escarpment that drops away sharply and accentuates the dry plains below.

Journeys were always an endless fascination with intricate traffic jams, overloaded lorries, cows and ox carts on the road (only in Tamil Nadu), bizarre signs, highly illegal traffic maneuvers by most vehicles, landslides, photo stops, fresh fruit stalls, blaring horns, friendly waves and that family favourite game – how many people are there in that rickshaw? Travelling round ‘mad Madurai’ by bike-shaw and Alleppey by auto-rickshaw were also real highlights getting in and among the chaos that is many Indian streets.

The Sri Meenakshi Temple is the most famous in India and has been a major pilgrimage centre for at least a thousand years. The four enormous gopuram (towers) loom large over the city centre and can be clearly seen from the surrounding hills. Up close, once you have passed through the old city streets that radiate out from the temple, the amazing colourful scenes on the plasterwork stretch towards the heavens in row after row of gaudy excess. We first visited at night when the shrine of the presiding goddess is carried on the shoulders of the priests to her consort’s side accompanied by flaming torches, musicians, policemen, billowing clouds of incense, pilgrims of all shapes and sizes and, on this instance, two slightly bewildered boys from south-west London who had clearly seen nothing of the sort before. Returning the next day we saw this giant complex in a different light; a huge flower market with dozens of workers sitting cross-legged making up jasmine garlands; row upon row of stalls selling mementoes and keepsakes for the pilgrims; the Hall of a Thousand Pillars; the Golden Lotus Pool over-shadowed by the gopurams; queues of pilgrims following the snaking barriers into the inner shrines (Hindus only); pilgrims from all over India taking photos of themselves and their new friends from London; the massive painted temple elephant who, in exchange for a small offering, would bless the donor by gently placing his trunk on their head!

More to follow on the Backwaters, beaches, Food...

Kododo School in Tanzania

Earlier this year Simon Smith, Head of Music at Amery Hill School in Alton, visited Kododo School in Tanzania.

The Kododo Project

The Kododo project aims to help resource and develop the primary school in a remote village in the Uluguru Mountains of Central Tanzania. Since October we at Amery Hill School have worked hard to raise money for the project, using our profile as a Specialist School for Music in the process. Through various concerts, a BigSing event, a Battle of the Bands and a non-school uniform day, we have raised £1500 so far, a tribute to the hard work of staff and students and the generosity of those who supported the events.

I visited Kododo for the first time in February with my wife Hannah. The first thing that struck me was how isolated and far removed from other communities the Kododo is. As we neared the village along a recently carved dirt track, we were warmly greeted by the sound of excitable children running out towards us. The money that we had raised went towards 160 recorders, which we distributed as gifts alongside school dresses donated by Chawton Primary School. The whole school performed their village song to us before we sung together Swahili songs that we had learnt prior to our visit. We took one of these songs, Jambo, and, after they had finished making as much noise as possible, taught it to the children on the recorders! Our time ended with Hannah performing her violin amidst a sea of faces that looked on with intrigue and bewilderment.

It was wonderful to see the unity and joy that music brings and to see the impact that we can have on those less fortunate than ourselves. We are hoping that our money goes towards new desks and new sets of text books in the near future and that this will be the start of a long-term relationship between Amery Hill and Kododo. We are already seeing the difference we can make.

Simon Smith
Head of Music – Amery Hill School

You can visit the Kododo school on our 2 week South Tanzania holiday - Hakuna Matata.

Kenya offers even better value as Visa fees are reduced by 50%

We have just received the following message from the Kenyan Tourist Board

“The Minister of Tourism for Kenya, Hon. Najib Balala, has announced that entry Visa rates are to be reduced by 50% and completely cut for children under 16 from 1st April 2009 until the end of 2010. This bold move is to make Kenya even more appealing for visitors and to further attract the growing family market. The visa cost has been reduced from $50 to $25 and with no cost for children under 16, so a family of four will now only have to pay $50 for the two adults, offering a saving of $150.
“With beautiful beaches and thrilling safaris, Kenya has a lot to offer families. This scheme will help to keep costs down for all when planning a trip to our diverse country and particularly benefit those travelling with children,” comments Hon. Najib Balala.”

We seen a huge increase in growth for Kenya holidays this year and here is another reason to consider this superb all round destination for your family.

Top Ten Value Destinations

A recent Post office report and Times Online article highlighted the ten cheapest countries to holiday in.

Here are the top ten holiday destinations when measured by value for your pounds.

1. Hungary £31.46


2. Czech Republic £31.49


3. Thailand £38.65


4. South Africa £43.27


5. Malaysia £44.71


6. Turkey £49.40


7. Bulgaria £49.87


8. Kenya £51.45


9. Croatia £57.26


10. Spain £61.73

Holiday basket includes: Cup of coffee, bottle of Heineken, bottle/can Coca-Cola, bottle of mineral water, factor 15 suncream, insect repellent, three course evening meal including bottle of house wine in a local restaurant. Source: Post Office

Luckily we are pleased to confirm that Families Worldwide offer great value trips in 8 of these 10 destinations.

Snow at the Families Worldwide Barn in Hampshire

Multi-purpose Familes Worldwide Cap!

It's not just when you are on one of our Family Adventure Holidays that our hats come in useful! To see the full range of family holidays, why not visit http://www.familiesworldwide.co.uk/