Homestead holidays: True taste of Indian life

In the middle of a banana plantation in northern Kerala, with fruit bats hanging overhead, a man is struggling to lift a huge weight.

His face is painted red, white and gold, and silver fangs protrude from this mouth. On his shoulders he wears a red embroidered yoke like enormous shoulder pads. In the stifling heat, he staggers as a 12-foot-tall headdress, like a great red-and-black sail, is lifted into place. He then begins to dance himself into a trance. At that point, he becomes the deity Bhagavati, acquiring magical powers for the duration of the ceremony.

This is Theyyam, a form of spirit possession unique to this part of Kerala in southern India. I and three other foreign travellers had been taken to the ceremony by Alan, the Mr Fixit at our Kerala homestay. Our host at Ayesha Manzil, an old colonial bungalow just outside the chaotic little coastal town of Tellicherry, is C.P. Moosa. Inside, the huge, dark rooms are full of heavy, carved wood furniture. Outside there is a veranda from where you can see the waves of the Arabian Sea crashing below.

New concept

Homestays are a relatively new development in Indian tourism and the idea is to give visitors an insight into local Indian life.

To this end, Moosa's wife, Faiza, gives lessons in Mopilla cooking, using the spices that drew Muslim traders such as Moosa's ancestors to this part of India centuries ago. Moosa takes me shopping in the fish market, where they sell everything from tiny anchovies to stingrays.

It was Moosa who introduced me to Alan, an Anglo-Indian who, he said, "will find you anything you want".And he does.

Besides tracking down the Theyyam, he takes me shopping in the bazaar for fabrics, hunts down a tailor who will make a pair of trousers for £3 (Dh18.16) in three hours and somehow magicks up a new battery for my camera.

In the evening he takes us to a spectacular white beach, empty but for a young girl learning to drive — which seems a somewhat inadequate preparation for the horrors of the Indian roads.

Ayurvedic therapy is another essential part of the Kerala experience. I felt like a chicken being tenderised for cooking, as two women smothered my body with oil and then massaged me from head to toe. After a bit I didn't know whose hands were doing what to what.

When I mentioned to Moosa that I would like to explore inland, he fixed up for me to spend two days at a homestay run by a friend high up in the Western Ghats.

Risky ride

The drive was breathtaking — and terrifying. At every hairpin bend you expect to be crushed between one of the ubiquitous autorickshaws and an oncoming bus. "Government buses always right," said my driver. We drove above the jungle up into the tea plantations, passing women carrying 55-pound sacks of tea on their heads.

My second homestay, near the tiny town of Vaduvanchal, was in a bungalow owned by Babu and Neena Chandray. Modestly called Hillview, it overlooks their own coffee plantation and an incredibly lush garden.

Again the cooking was exquisite. The Chandrays could not have been kinder hosts, dosing me with Ayurvedic medicine when sunstroke threatened and answering my every question about the local way of life.

Fine dining

The next day, a guide drove me still higher up the mountain to a clearing where they were selling a few souvenirs, the only ones I saw in the whole trip. I then scrambled up a 200-foot cliff, some of it on ladders, watched by mocking monkeys.

At the top I paused to take in the stunning view before venturing into one of the Edakkal caves. On the walls are carvings that are 6,000 years old and they make every perilous step up the mountain worthwhile.

That afternoon we went to the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. Next day, Babu took me to the edge of a reservoir where he is planning to build four homestay bungalows. .

On the day of my return trip, I succumbed to a stomach upset, which I am sure had to do with bucketing round in the heat. But I will remember the wonderful week long after I have forgotten how exhausted I was by the journey.