Final Adventures

Our final group excursion to “God’s own country” was beautiful. From the time we stepped outside of the small 2 seat-by-2 seat plane it was evident what God’s life is like…in paradise. Although India is a tropical country all over, here in Kerala the green is dispersed much more densely. While driving through the cities, there are many more coconut and palm trees towering above and in-between. The roads were much curvier in and out of the green scenery. Our initial destination was on a houseboat, our own personal houseboat for eight people, own chef, and with four bedrooms. Aside from a few cockroaches, the casual, slow ride for twenty-four hours was extremely relaxing, a true Indian experience, greeted with a coconut and straw for everyone for some refreshing coconut water. It finished with a homemade breakfast meal of omelets and toast as we watched the river banks narrow as more houseboats, trees, and homes came into view underneath the early morning sun.

Kerala is the most developed state in India. It recently ranked as high as developed nations in the Human Development Index in terms of education, income, and health. That is pretty amazing for this country. As I learned in my Social Legislation and Policy class, when it comes to inheritance laws here in India, every state follows the same law except for Kerala. While in the case of a female death: in all of India the successors are her children and husband; in Kerala, as one example, the first in line are her children and her mother. As we learned Kerala had a specific land reform which was the only state to successfully follow this allowing for families to establish little home gardens. These ideas pretty much sum up, in my opinion, a very successful place.

It was more than the history and the logistics of the state which I enjoyed. It was my fifteen-foot high jungle journey on top of a cloth and elephant. Additional, was our discovery of many local spices and spiders among the jungle under the rain. I ate numerous “Kerala meals” or “Kerala thali” which consists of a circular tray, rice in the center with a popaddum, a fried crunchy thing, any many curries or gravies surrounding. Coconut is among the most common with vegetable, dal, tomato, and fish curries. We saw many wild elephants in our boat tour of a national forest reserve. Unfortunately among the 900 sq km of the reserve there are only thirty to forty tigers, so there was no sighting. Our adventures continued with monkeys coming to our windows every morning while at the reserve searching and pleading for food. We finished our excursion with an ayurvedic massage, the first massage of my life, a typical Indian one famous for working all senses using a herbal oil with music in the background. It was definitely an experience..... Our last night was spent at a fancy hotel near the airport with buffet dinners and breakfasts, a little bit of consumerism to prepare us for our return home to the U.S. in three weeks.

It was a great final group excursion. Although I still have four weeks left in India, including one safari and a true vacation week to the west coast, it was the final group trip we participated in all together amidst beautiful scenery and delicious food.