Heaven and Hell in Kumarakom

The drive to Kumarakom started out beautiful and interesting. My driver spoke much better English than the previous ones so we actually could construct a conversation or two. For some inexplicable reason, I had ordered a car without air conditioning which was a big mistake. My line of thinking was that it hadn’t been necessary from Munnar to Thekkady but that was at altitude, driving through forests but this time, there were larger towns, traffic and an increase in temperature of maybe 10°c. Leaving at 11am. wasn’t too smart either. I don’t like air conditioning, especially when it’s fierce and you have to actually wear more clothes than you would outdoors or when the cold air is blowing directly onto your dodgy shoulder or knackered back. Things deteriorated as we descended from the hills. To be honest, the rising temperature isn’t what got me hot under the collar but the driver’s relentless use of the car horn. You would have thought I should have been used to it by now but my logical brain refuse to understand the unnecessary honking on a straight road with no other vehicles, pedestrians or cows in sight. I stupidly attempted the hapless task of explaining to the driver that in Europe, we use the horn to avoid accidents (unless you’re a taxi driver in Amsterdam, waiting for a fare outside the “Escape” nightclub at 5am. on a Saturday night) and the indicator as a way of signalling intent to turn or over-take. No reason why you can’t do the same! Why do I always persist in trying to make a point, despite knowing I am being rude and possibly disrespectful? I blame it on that ridiculously intolerant brain of mine.

Good old fashioned punting

My headache from the previous day re-emerged and my mood deteriorated further as we approached Kumarakom, a very small village on Lake Vembanad. The roads are all unmade and I couldn’t spot anywhere to eat in case I wanted to escape from the hotel’s cuisine. For the second time on this trip, the driver went to the wrong hotel. It had happened in Kumily too. He said “Waterscape yes?” to which I said “No. Backwater Ripples. I asked you 2 days ago if you knew it and you replied “Yes””. I should know by now that “yes” doesn’t always mean the affirmative. He had heard “water” and that automatically made him think of Waterscape which is a bit silly seeing as Kumarakom is a touristy place on a lake and almost all of the hotels have either the words “water” or “lake” included in them. He had misheard the price we had agreed on too but I was not going to put up with that monkey business. If I had been in a better mood, maybe but not right then.

Backwater Ripples Hotel

Eventually, we arrived at the hotel where I was glad to get out of the car. Thankfully, the hotel looked beautiful and inviting, more like a luxury resort. I appreciated a swift check-in, my welcome cold pineapple juice and a quick burst of air conditioning in my room. This place is not cheap at around €80/night for the most basic of rooms but the peaceful setting, clean and refreshing swimming pool and impeccably kept grounds were worth it. I came across an Ayurveda centre on the way to my room, past the wonderful aromas coming out of the vents of the attractive looking building and my initial thought was that I could do with a de-stressing head message so I ventured in.

I am writing this after my 5 night stay in Kumarakom but throughout this journey in Kerala, I have been making notes periodically as I think it’s important to record my true emotions at the present time rather than writing with hindsight.  Some of my literary moments of inspiration have struck me when I have been in a tuk tuk and I challenge anyone, apart from my sister, to decipher my hand-written notes from these occasions.

At the Ayurveda Centre I enquired about a de-stressing massage. They had a list of treatments and I was lured into looking through their 3-4 day packages. Before long, it came out that I had a bad back and within a few minutes, the Ayurveda Doctor appeared. OK, I thought, I’m in a lovely relaxing setting, have a relatively comfy bed, I can be weightless in the pool, the sun is out and the hotel has hammocks, God’s little present to those with a back like mine so why not give this alternative mumbo jumbo a bash here. If it doesn’t help then I always have my own course of treatment to fall back onto. (The aforementioned sun and swimming pool)

Watching the sunset from my hammock

I fetched the CDs of my X-Rays and MRI scans and I talked the doc through them. He didn’t look at them very closely or for very long but remarked I was in need of help. He started giving me the Ayurveda chat, which I had heard once before but this was the briefer version and I started questioning everything he said. “Vata – means bones, you are vata”

“What?”

He was trying to say my bones were weak which is rubbish. For someone like me who spent 7 years doing gymnastics, rode bicycles like a stuntman, was fearless and has had more drinking injuries than  care to admit (especially from climbing the barriers in the middle of the A316 en route to the pub after coming out of London Scottish Rugby Club), I have broken the extortionate sum of one bone - my little toe and that wasn’t my fault. I’m not sure if I should also count the time when I nose-butted the wash basin in my bedroom after falling off my trampoline bed. I was only 5 years old at the time so I think it was more a dent in the cartilage, rather than a broken bone. [citation needed from Dr. Woodford, AKA my Mum]. Anyway, I tried to explain there was no problem with my bones, my vertebrae may be deteriorating because there is a lack of discs to cushion them from each other but anyone’s bones would do the same after 30 odd years, in fact I think my vertebrae are in pretty good nick considering the medical facts. He also pointed out that the scoliosis (refer back to Chapter 1 if you’re a newcomer) is a result of weak muscles on one side of my spine. Seeing as the pain started 3 years before I finally gave up gymnastics, I would love to know at what particular time, in these intervening years, my muscles got weak. I was on average a year younger than everyone in my class at school and clearly remember taking on anyone who would challenge me to an arm wrestle during those wet break times when we were stuck inside with absolutely nothing to amuse ourselves. I always won.

Maybe there is an element of truth in the muscle theory but his generalising of medical conditions pissed me off. I tried to strike him down with some badly thought out analogies but he wouldn’t budge. The verdict was I have fragile bones, the muscles on one side of my spine are weak, I don’t breathe properly and my digestion needs to be improved. He even said, just by looking at me, that drinking milk would give me diarrhoea. I haven’t drank a glass of milk since I was force fed it, warm at St. Mary’s School when I was 8 years old and won’t be testing out that theory in a hurry. (Maybe that’s why my bones are so obviously weak)

I was getting nowhere so it was time for a few home truths for Dr. Ayurveda. I asked him “Do you believe in all this stuff?”

“Yes, of course” he said, with his wibbly wobbly head.

“Do you believe that you can help anyone with any disease, condition or injury?”

“Yes” he said cautiously,

“May I be rude? And please can I apologise in advance for what I am about to ask?”

“OK, no problem”

“If you believe in all this, why are you so obviously overweight and risk developing diabetes?” Thankfully he laughed instead of hitting me. He replied saying he believed but he was not practising and was in fact a lazy person who liked watching TV and his wife cooks too much of the wrong type of food for him. At least he was honest. He seemed to think I was the opposite to him in being super active but I couldn’t be bothered to put him right.

Fed up with the conversation, I got straight to the point, “I am here for five days, do you honestly think you can give me any kind of pain relief?”

“Yes”

“Even if I don’t understand all these things you have been saying?”

“Yes”

“OK, how much?”

He devised a program for me and the cost associated with it. I bartered him down and when we agreed on a price, I said “and throw in a free head massage”. If I didn’t try this Ayurveda treatment, then I would be left wondering. If it helped, even a little bit, then I could come back again for a full program and if it didn’t then at least I could still enjoy the hotel’s lovely facilities.

I received my head massage straight away and it was fabulous. I had heard about hair oil from Sadhna, back in Amsterdam and by this time had been using it for about 10 days, after all, when in India......do as the Romans Indians do. It appears to do wonders for your hair so I didn’t mind when Rachel, my personal masseuse/nurse/carer lashed it on. A neck and shoulder massage followed which was fairly tame but pleasurable. The real treatment would begin the next morning at 8am.

Houseboat on the lake

Day 1

Rachel arrived in my room bang on time. She made me lie on my stomach which is always uncomfortable for me as it arches the spine the wrong way, even on a bed. She applied some kind of magical hot paste (lapam) to my lower back. After half an hour she returned, wiped it off and reapplied. After that was washed off, I went to their treatment centre and made my acquaintance with the “Ayurveda Table”. I was asked to climb onto it and again lie on my stomach. I had already pointed out to the doctor and now to Rachel that lying flat on my stomach or back, especially on hard surfaces was seriously painful. She ran off to get a roll up, plastic mat, similar to the type you may put on a sun-lounger but thinner and I lay on that. It was very uncomfortable but I gritted my teeth. The next treatment was something called podikizhi where a bunch of herbs are wrapped tightly into a piece of muslin forming a kind of poultice which was then heated and applied to my back in short, sharp, movements. The smell was a cross between caramel and frying fragrant spices in ghee – nice. It felt good too but my body was beginning to fight the painful position I was in. The muscles in my back went rigid, my shoulders tensed up and I found it difficult to move my head from one side to the other. After the podikizhi I crawled up into a ball to get a moments relief before being laid out again for kateevasthi, the treatment I had seen on the telly, where a ring is formed from herbal plastercine, around the lower spine and hot, herbal oil is poured in, left for 5 minutes and removed. The process is repeated 4-5 times, by which time I was struggling with this position and I made sure that Rachel and the doctor knew this. In a cold climate, this would have put me straight back onto crutches but the delicious Indian heat, the best form of pain relief for me was trying to undo the damage.

The morning’s 2 ½ hour treatment was to be repeated again at 3pm. so I made a beeline for the pool where I floated, stretched and curled up in a ball and the pain subsided. A couple of hours in the hammock, watching the houseboats trundle by, felt blissful and far removed from the pain I had had just 3-4 hours previously.

The afternoon session was in a different room and they had only put a blanket over the hard, wooden table. I refused, point blank to get on that table. Didn’t they listen to me before or did they just think “Sod it, this is the way we do it, she’ll just have to put up with it”? I feigned walking out which prompted Rachel into action and the flimsy mat was retrieved. This time, I positioned myself differently, letting my head flop over the end of the table which prevented the muscles in my neck and shoulders going mental. However, it was still painful in my lower back and my dodgy knees and ankles also began to protest. Back to the doctor to tell him there was no way I was going to gain anything from this treatment if he persisted on inflicting pain on me through the table.

I was drained that evening - watched a beautiful sunset, had a quick dinner in the over air-conditioned, over-priced, restaurant (in fact, I had to go back to my room to put on long trousers and a fleece) and had an early night.

Sunset

Day 2

I slept badly thanks to my back pain and felt pretty dreadful getting out of bed. In the morning I was given the same treatment as the day before but now it was decided that the  .....could be applied with me lying on my side, a decision really could have been made the day before. Why does common sense not always prevail? Unfortunately the...........required me to be flat so there was no reprieve for that half hour.

In the afternoon, I received my first full body massage with about 6 gallons of herbal oil. It felt a lot better than the tortuous lying on my stomach nonsense. Some parts were even enjoyable. This massage really isn’t for the prudish. All your bits and pieces are not just uncovered but your bum and breasts get a good rubbing too. Being a heterosexual woman, this part was a bit disconcerting to say the least and hoped it wouldn’t bother me too much. I also felt a bit like the Bond girl in Goldfinger who was covered in gold and me in oil. Covering every inch of her body didn’t do her any good!

Another Bond moment when I was led to the steam bath after my massage, sat in there with my head popping out of the top. I was just waiting for Sean Connery to nip by, shove a broom handle in between the door handles and turn up the heat. Steam, ie. heat always feels good for my back but the sitting position was not comfortable and that and a dose of claustrophobia got to me after about 10 minutes.

I saw the doctor after I had scrubbed and showered and told him I was not feeling any better, in fact, considerably worse and in my experience, the torture table and prolonged periods of time lying in positions that hurt were to blame. I had pointed this out from the start so unfortunately this was a bit of a “I told you so” conversation. The doctor wanted to try something different and asked me to try a different paste. He looked so pathetic I agreed. Back in my room, some gunk consisting of ground up herbs mixed with egg was applied to my lumber spine and when it had dried, I could move around but it had stuck fast so every little moment gave me a mini waxing which itched like hell. In the mirror, it looked like I had a big cowpat stuck on my back. Doc wanted me to keep it on all night but it irritated me and flaked all over the bed so I put up with it for 5 hours then washed it off.

Day 3

I woke up totally exhausted and in more pain than I have done for a few months so I hit the pain killers. My sense of humour was also being tested to the hilt. More massages and more paste applications. I was beginning to feel very grumpy and the massages made me feel as if my body was being violated. I didn’t want these girls touching parts of me that I consider out of bounds, it wasn’t pleasant and I shied away from their touch and also asked them to stop pulling my toes, after all what in the hell does that have to do with my bad back? I rehearsed the conversation I was going to have with Doc. Apparently the full body massage is for better circulation and the toe pulling is because people want to hear them crack. This was beginning to get farcical, far removed from back pain and I would have pulled the plug there and then if I hadn’t felt sorry for Doc’s and Rachel’s pathetic faces.

At 5pm. the hotel put on a free sunset boat cruise on the lake and until today, I had been on the slab at this time. This time, I made it, took some pain killers and I spent an hour on the water reflecting what all this meant. These are the notes I made during that hour’s cruise, it might give you an idea on my frame of mind:

1.      1. Ayurveda is a sham – there is no knowledge of the anatomy, all ailments seem to be treated under the same premise that increasing oxygen and glucose to ones damaged areas will cure all ills.

2.      2. What a brilliant decision I made in leaving The Ayurvedic place in Wayanad after 2 days. At least I found out the truth in luxury and I could deal with the inflicted pain so much better in a hammock and swimming pool.

3.      3. I have to face up to my damaged back. Today is the last time I shall feel sorry for myself. From now, I shall ignore the pain as much as I possibly can and not inflict my misery on anyone else.

4.      4. I am a very fortunate to have great people around me at home and the best boyfriend on the planet. I live in a beautiful apartment in a fantastic city. I don’t have to worry about money matters or put up with a crap job. Apart from my back, I am healthy and if I ever feel blue, I just walk down my stairs, across the bridge to my second home, Mulligans and 99 times out of 100, there’s someone in there to put a smile on my face. How many people have all this?

For the first time in 3 weeks, that evening I had a non-Indian meal of hot and sour soup and a prawn cocktail. A weird combination but that’s what I fancied. A good night’s sleep followed thanks to a sleeping pill.

Day 4

I took some tramadol this morning to get me through the day. Tramadol gives you a bit of flatulence so I tried not to fart my way through my treatment, although I was tempted...... I refused to get on my stomach so everything was done on my side and finally, someone had tracked down something to lie on which resembled padding. However the damage had been done and I was still experiencing sharp pains in my back. Doc was still trying and asked if he could apply some more cowpat (which apparently was some kind an anti-inflammatory – something that has never helped my back pain) that evening. I declined and said what’s the point? He said that it was reducing the swelling in my back. Poor Doc, he hadn’t understood anything. Swelling doesn’t give me chronic pain, that’s all very secondary. Bones getting too friendly with each other is the problem!

In the evening, I was glad I was almost at the end of this ill-fated experiment. I ate a delicious Kerala Fish Curry in the restaurant and had a good laugh with all the staff there, something that doesn’t happen very often for them unfortunately. I have seen the way that many Indian guests treat hotel staff and it horrifies me, they are so rude and look down on these people serving them. No pleases or thank yous. Disgraceful. I get treated so brilliantly by everyone in India because I smile and am courteous and take a few minutes out of every day asking about them - contrary to popular belief, it isn’t all about me.

When a party of 3 Indians came in, all elderly, over 70 for sure, I took notice of them as one of the trio looked a real character. She had long, grey hair in plaits a bit like the wife of a native American Indian Chief (if you follow me) and was dressed, not in a sari but in jogging trousers (sweat pants) and a t-shirt. Her lower jaw jutted out as if she was practising for a gurning competition but it was the air about her which just said “I don’t give a shit” that I loved. If I get old, I want to be like her. 5 minutes later, a lady walking passed by my table and said hello. She materialised to be the sister of the gurning woman and all her family lived in Leicester and had been doing so for 54 years but came back to India every winter. She said she was ready to go home now. We had a lovely chat about thing various and we wished each other a safe trip home,

The Pain Clinic

Day 5

One more massage, one more breakfast, a final swing in the hammock and float in the pool (which a few minutes later was taken over by about 20 kids) then I checked out. That was a bizarre experience in itself. I was asked to fill in one of their feedback surveys, something I usually refuse to do but I relented. Afterwards, I got the third degree on why I had marked the reception service as “average”. I explained that average wasn’t bad, it wasn’t exceptional, and they shouldn’t feel insulted. Just to amuse myself, I went on to explain that in maths, there are several ways of measuring the average and in something like a questionnaire, the “average” box should be the one in the middle, like the median. Their questionnaire only had 4 responses and “average” was the 2^nd worst option so either the header “average” should be changed or they needed to add another box and keep average in the middle. I giggled to myself at their blank faces.

Good riddance to Ayurveda but it’s not all bad news. My hair and skin look and feel great. Unfortunately I will associate the stench of all those oils with something close to hell if I ever smell them again.