Kerala: Backwaters, Beaches, and Beyond

Last week we embarked on our first family vacation with Annie! It was absolutely fabulous (not too similar to the British comedy show of the same name). We went to the state of Kerala in southern India for a break from the urban expanse of Delhi and to celebrate the winding down of Jo's dissertation research.

We were all a little apprehensive about how Annie (and by default her parents) would do, but once again Annie proved that she is a born traveler if there ever was one.




Annie did pretty well all things considered in the airplane, although she wasn't too fond of her ears popping. We learned from the stewardess that feeding a baby serves the same purpose as chewing gum/swallowing during takeoff/landing. A good tip!

Flying into Kerala was like entering another world. Seriously. I have never in my life seen a place sooo green. Now maybe this is the relative effect of being sequestered in Delhi for the last year, or maybe it's just Kerala. All I know is that Annie was absolutely smitten with the different landscape as we winded our way to Vypeen Island.


View Where are we now? in a larger map

Unlike many other Meek vacations--where we are busy little bees checking out all the local sites--on this vacation we stayed put at our all-inclusive resort--Cherai Beach Resorts (don't ask me why they pluralized the singular resort).

The resort was really amazing in terms of grounds and facilities on so many levels.



Jo and sleepy babe walking the beautiful grounds


Yes, there was a lot of walking around with the little snuggle bear

It is a pretty large complex with 66 individual and unique cottages of varying degrees of luxury. All are encircled with little "backwater" lagoons.


Jo in front of our 1st fishermen house, story on why we switched to follow!

and in our second fishermen house....




which was beautifully lit up at night

Ours had some very unique features, including a bathroom with steps down into the lagoon from where you could watch the fishes swimming around.





Our room even had a palm tree growing in it!



We were there on a package trip, the first we had ever done together. Having the buffet was a little dangerous, but it did give us a chance to sample all sorts of Keralan cuisine.


This coconut "log" was one of the few things that did get the thumbs down

One other thing besides the food that we really loved about the restaurant was that they had a bamboo wicker cradle, which Annie and her parents all loved!



While the grounds and facilities were really wonderful, it was the natural surroundings that we came for and that we enjoyed the most. While I'll devote subsequent blog posts to each of these, some include:


Annie's first beach



Hanging out in her first tree house with papa

and watching local fishermen at sunrise