Field Notes: Kayal

It is 2013 and am on a little country boat, rocked by gentle waves, in the middle of what seems like the deep sea. But this isn’t the ocean, it’s the backwaters, and I’m being rowed to a lush island by a boatman in a white mundu and a checked shirt.

 I am in search of a quiet office space. I stumble off the boat, and onto a jetty. I sit at the edge soaking in the stillness. I haven’t explored the island yet, but I am taken over by the calm. I step in and out of the broken buildings along the water. “This used to be an artist residency”, the boatman tells me. I don’t know how I will build an office on the island. I know the space will take a lot of work, but I feel at ease. I have the urge to belong to the island. 

I walk through the island and discover it’s 4 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide and has a village on it. Some six hundred people inhabit the island. They fish, farm, and take the boat to get to the mainland and work odd jobs in the cities nearby. There are women in their seventies that dive in the backwaters to catch fish with their bare hands, and boys that climb mango trees. 

I bring a few architects to the island and Jyothi, the one I eventually end up working with tells me, “None of your office staff will take a boat to come work here. Make a small hotel instead, travellers will love it.” 

I have very little money and no experience in construction, but within a month, I am on another boat filled with bricks and sand, heading towards the island. It is a year of hard work, bringing building materials by boat, negotiating with blue shirt union workers, fielding the recurring sar evide question. Where is Sir? I imagine the islanders have never seen a woman lead a construction project alone. I imagine they have never taken instructions from a woman. I learn to work with them and they with me. I approach several banks for a loan and get turned down. Eager to finish what I started, I make videos of the backwaters and pre-sell rooms to finish the hotel. 

The backwaters are familiar to me. My dad grew up in the backwaters and I have fond memories of spending my summers climbing trees, jumping in the lake, and chasing frogs. With Kayal, my four cottage boutique hotel, I want to bring that carefreeness of my childhood summers.

Each cottage is inspired by local Kerala architecture and curated with items from my childhood — white walls, old Kerala wooden furniture, open bath gardens filled with cashew trees, brass milk cans that hold bright red heliconias. I want our guests to feel like they’ve come for a holiday to my grandmother’s house, with all the modern comforts that a city dweller wants — comfortable beds, rain showers, hand-spun cotton bathrobes. Our aesthetic is minimal and blends with the sleepy island it’s on.

I recruit the island folk and train them to make beds, serve traditional Kerala meals, sing short bursts of classical songs, and take guests on midnight fishing expeditions.

In December of 2014, we opened to our very first guests. Our boatman met them at the ferry and brought them through a few kilometers of backwater onto the island. As soon as they stumbled onto the island, they held my hand and thanked me for giving them the most stunning travel experience they’ve had. 

I could relate. The island has the same draw on them as it had on me, bringing people into its fold and putting them at ease. With this, I knew I had a winner. If they liked arriving on the island, they were going to love everything else about to unfold.

My team brings out hot tea and crisp banana fritters. The fritters are light and made with a batter of chickpeas and rice flour. They sip the tea and look at the drifting lake. 

The slow pace of the island sets the tone for the day at Kayal.

A morning can start with calming meditation, followed by yoga and an Ayurveda massage. One can hop on a canoe and sail past paddy fields and coconut farms, or walk right into our village and soak in the local life, stopping at the local tea-shop for a little rest and snack. We can arrange for you to join a farmer in his fields, the fisherman on the lake, the toddy tapper up the tree, or the womenfolk in their local festivals.

There isn’t a single houseboat within miles of Kayal. No crowds. No cars. No buses.

Our dusk is National Geographic Traveler editor George W Stone’s favourite time of day

“Sunset in Kerala, India, is greeted by a series of rituals. Here on Kakkathuruthu, a tiny island in Kerala’s tangled backwaters, children leap into shallow pools. Women in saris head home in skiffs. Fishermen light lamps and cast nets into the lagoon. Bats swoon across the horizon snapping up moths. Shadows lengthen, the sky shifts from pale blue to sapphire, and the emerald fringed “island of crows” - the Malayalam name for this sandy spot along the Malabar Coast - embraces night. If dawn is awakening and daytime is illumination, then twilight is transcendence, a final burst of vitality before darkness falls”.

This single piece of press coverage put us on the global map and gave us enough business to last us years. Typically, we sell out months in advance. Then came Covid. We remained totally shut for 7 months. I felt a total lack of control. I couldn’t control the pandemic, the lockdown, and the lack of guests, the financial and emotional strain this long period of no business had taken.

How did I cope?

Sometime in mid-October before the first trickle of clients, we had to paint, polish, repair, recruit, and ready Kayal for guests. I had built a hotel from scratch with very little money, but this felt different. There were no travelers now. No one could come to stay with us even if they wanted.

The only thing I could control was getting Kayal guest-ready. I joined my painters, carpenters, and boat makers in our resumption. I spent an entire day with my boat makers tying loose planks of wood with coir, dousing the boat in fish oil, and stripping old aluminum sheets covered in barnacles, and nailing new shiny sheets of aluminum onto the boat. I helped them push the boat from our island onto the vast backwaters. 

I was exhausted but felt satisfied having finished one aspect of our hotel. I also felt a sense of calm. Working with my hands was therapeutic and soothed my nerves about losing my shirt to the pandemic. Suddenly, I felt more empowered, grounded and even happy for having learned a new skill.

The last year and a half has been most challenging, but Kayal is now open, and we’re thrilled to have visitors again. Our little boat is busy ferrying guests. With just four cottages on a remote island, we are the perfect socially distanced holiday. We’re ready for folks to take a break from their homes and routine, gaze at the endless expanse of blue waters, and bury their head in a paperback, while we make their beds and cook them meals.

Maneesha Panicker is the founder of Kayal Island Retreat and Silk Route Escapes. She lives in Kochi and likes design, being on a boat in the backwaters and listening to a good audiobook.

Follow Kayal Island Retreat on Instagram.

Click here to book a stay at Kayal Island Retreat.