hips don't lie: India and Maldives cruises: A passage to the India of my youth

Thứ Hai, 27 tháng 5, 2013

India and Maldives cruises: A passage to the India of my youth

PUBLISHED:

11:24 EST, 26 May 2013

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UPDATED:

03:26 EST, 27 May 2013

I had sailed on ships before, back and forth to India as a little girl in the 1950s when air travel was rare. But I had never taken a cruise so I didn’t know what to expect.

I joined the ship, Aegean Odyssey, as a guest speaker with Voyages to Antiquity.

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Cruising at the slowest speed: A house boat is the perfect way to enjoy the sights of Kerala

I was to give a talk on my book, A Tiger’s Wedding, the story of my early childhood in India as a daughter of the Raj; where my father and grandfather had been tea-planters in the beautiful blue High Range hills of Kerala.

Our cabin, with a balcony, used space well and an attentive Filipino steward, Ronald, looked after us for the 12 days on board.

The Indian Ocean voyage was a cultural one with lectures on The Indian Mutiny and other fascinating topics, and there were to be excursions to places of cultural interest.

We breakfasted on our balcony on pineapple, papaya, melon and limes, watching flying fish jump and dive and a school of smiley-faced porpoises escorting our ship, just for fun, it seemed, as we sped across the ocean.

But we also saw rather too many plastic bags and bottles (what are we doing to our seas?).

We’d watch the moon on the water in the evenings (a strangely upside-down moon, sitting like a wedge of lemon on its back) sipping Sancerre and wistfully remembering my parents and countless others like them, who looked at the same sea with heavy hearts, having left behind their children in the care of strangers. Such was the custom of the Raj.

The excursions were conducted with military precision and good humour. There were thoughtful touches such as bottles of water, chilled lime juice and ice-cold face cloths, invaluable as the humidity was pretty intense.

My husband and I occasionally preferred our own company so we made some trips on our own. We walked through Kochi, so familiar from my childhood, the air redolent with spices: cloves and cardamoms, cinnamon, cumin and coriander, nutmeg and mace.

We sat in the still-familiar gardens of the newly refurbished Vivanta by Taj Malabar hotel, watching seagulls compete with crows as they followed fishing boats chugging out to sea. We joined the other guests to take a boat trip through the backwaters, little lagoons fringed with coconut palms, banana and cashew trees and climbing pepper vines.

There was a sudden downpour, unusual between November and May, but it doused our spirits not a jot as we witnessed people simply living – feeding chickens, washing clothes, their children laughing and playing, as they have done for hundreds of years.

One special excursion was to Kuda Bandos, a small, uninhabited island in the Maldives.

We spent the afternoon picnicking on the beach, walking over the hot coral sand and feeding the rainbow-coloured fish on chopped-up banana skins – it was joyful and we laughed as the fearless, beautiful creatures nibbled from our hands.

People can sometimes be patronising about cruises and their passengers, but the people we met were scholarly, interested, interesting and utterly charming.

Our 12 days were soon over; an experience I was privileged to have and will never forget. I walked off the plane into the freezing sleet of a winter night in London. Was it all a dream? There was still pink sand in my shoes as I unpacked…

Isla Blair’s Book, A Tiger’s Wedding, is published by Julian Calder and is available as hardback, ebook and audio download from Amazon and selected bookshops.

Travel Facts

Voyages to Antiquity (0845 437 9737, www.voyagestoantiquity.com) offers a range of cruises in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Black Sea this summer. A 13-day cruise on Aegean Odyssey costs from £1,995 per person, including return flights, full board with wine at dinner, excursions and gratuities and no single supplement. It will be cruising around India in the winter of 2014-15.