Mama and me in India

Around this time, three years ago, my mom and I travelled to India together. It was a first for both of us – and it was also the first time my mom had travelled anywhere on her own.

I had friends from Kerala: a couple who were also teachers and living in South Africa, and some of the teachers I was working with at the time.

As I was living and working in the UAE, I met my mom in Dubai and we travelled on together from there. She did well to get to Dubai, despite a very last-minute hiccough with her visa that had been her travel agent’s mistake, and arrived looking just a little proud of herself and quite ready for our adventure.

And what an adventure it was... Before we’d even arrived, I had got sick so arrived very early in the morning, eyes and nose streaming, to find our guesthouse in Kochi (Cochin) not at all how it had been described – there was of course no mention of the smell, the noise or the mosquitoes on its website! Well, things could only get better... and they did – so much better!

We moved to a small hotel in Ernakulam and took the ferry across to explore Fort Cochin where we wandered through the narrow streets, stopping along the way at the markets and some of the historic buildings, and to watch the fishermen at the huge and striking Chinese fishing nets along the northern shore.

We hired a car and a driver (which was more expensive than taking the bus but still within our budget and a lot more comfortable and convenient) to take us up to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats. It’s a green and hilly region filled with cardamom, tea and rubber-tree plantations. We stayed in Kumily and from there visited a spice garden where we climbed up to a viewpoint in the trees, rode an elephant through the forests at Elephant Junction (another first for us both and very brave of my mom!), spotted elephants in the wild around Periyar Lake and went on a short but quite strenuous walk through the forests around the lake, rafting across at one point – and hiding in the bushes when we heard something come crashing through the trees up ahead (– I’m still not too sure what that was..!).

We also took a day tour of the backwaters south of Kochi and some of the villages around. This was perhaps the best day of our holiday as it was such a leisurely trip and such a serene and beautiful part of Kerala.

And we met many friendly and helpful people, found much to laugh about (including, albeit affectionately, some of our more hippy fellow travellers) and so much to see and do. At the end of the holiday, we joked that we would go back one day in a far more hippy wardrobe ourselves. Maybe we will...

My mom’s motto for the trip: ‘Have daughter, will travel.’

At Jumeirah Beach, Dubai

At the fish market in Kochi (Cochin)

Stepping off the ferry at the Customs Jetty (Fort Cochin)

The higgledy-piggledy architecture of Ambadi in Kumily (http://www.hotelambadi.com)

A baby elephant at Elephant Junction near Kumily (http://www.elephantjunction.com)

At a spice garden near Kumily

On the backwaters south of Kochi

Mama and me..?