Saturday 23rd January 2010

Day 4 in India..........Coming into land at Trivandrum airport on Wednesday morning, I'm met by a dense sea of palm trees dotted with temples of warm red and orange. The airport looks decidedly friendly, Kerala and I are going to get along just fine! The airport is small and manageable for a first time traveller to India. Its slightly chaotic in a humorous rather than intimidating way. Walking out of arrivals into the gentle 11am heat, taxi drivers hustle for business, baggage carriers unabashedly re-adjust their sarongs narrowly guarding their modesty, and a young keralan girl of around five years old boldly struts out in a pair of high heels, greeting her mother who is serenely clad in a modest and beautiful candy coloured sari. This strange contradiction immediately strikes me, the first of many in this Gargantuan country of baffling contrasts. The taxi driver perilously zig zags through the sea of suicidal tuk tuk drivers, the smell of burning piles of rubbish in the shanty town around the airport mars the lush landscape with a somewhat sinister air. Half and hour later we turn off the main road into a small village, down a bumpy narrow dirt track. Walking into the whimsical oasis that is Davina Lagoona, a heady touch of the opulence sits somehow incongruously with the calm lagoon where fishermen go about their daily tasks. Davina is a warm and convivial hostess. I start Thursday with an Ayruvedic massage. I'm asked to wear the very modest kaftan provided as I am escorted through the village. My masseuse Shelley greet me with kind eyes and a sleepy bright smile, as do all the villagers. Back on the terrace, bathed in birdsong, soothed by the ayruvedic oil, looking out at the fishermen hauling in their nets along the shores of the wild arabian sea as they have done for thousands of years brings a feeling of comfort and continuity. The next few days pass with the same soothing rhythm and by Saturday I am fit and ready for the stringent 5am starts at the Sivananda ashram up in the mountains. Contact with the outside world is strictly forbidden so I will be in touch in a few weeks!