In the southern Indian state of Kerala, an ancient for of voiceless theater still thrives. Kathakali is a riot of colours and rhythms that retells Indian legends.

Learn about it through info-bubbles inspired by the VH1 series “Pop-up video.”

Every year, they come, mostly young Western women, to medicate, practice yoga, and follow an acetic lifestyle. I spent 12 days at the Yoga Vacation of the ashram Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari, whose founder, Swami Vishnudevananda, had the mission of popularize the practice in the West.

Listen to the report.

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Note: this post shares advice that is best enjoyed if starting life all over again. Belief in reincarnation is advised.

There’s no shortage of travel blogs that dispense tips on avoiding food poisoning in India. Few are any good. Most advise you to stick to tourist-oriented restaurants, avoid dairy products, and stay away from street food.

Now what’s the fun in that?

The advice below will let you enjoy all flavours of India without having to limit yourself.

Infancy and childhood

Get born into a family that isn’t germophobic
Be exposed to germs from the very beginning, as humans have since the dawn of time. Breastfeed.

Play in the dirt
Put random things in your mouth, bite other children, get licked by dogs.

Don’t take antibiotics for every little infection
Let your immune system learn to fight on its own.

Adolescence and adult life

Eat things off the floor
Make it a 10-second rule.

Eat everything
Get exposed to every flavour, spice, and raw foods that contain bacteria that don’t necessarily lead to poisoning.

Kiss lots of people
It’s a natural immune booster. Also, share cups and utensils.

Don’t disinfect the hamstring curls machine before using it
Your germs are not holier than the germs of other gym members. In fact, they can spot for each other!

Once travelling

Visit as many developing countries as you can
And eat their food. Get exposed to an international selection of antigens.

Brush your teeth with tap water
Ingest tiny, manageable amounts of potentially tainted water. Just enough for your body to identify it and learn to fight it. Put a few drops of tap water in your bottled water.

Start cautiously, progress boldly
Play it safe at first. Eat only at very clean restaurants or those catered to tourists. Give your stomach some days to adapt to the new spices. Gradually frequent spots favoured by locals. Take a chance on one or two grimy joints.

If no illness occurs, go for street food

Congratulations, you are now Delhi Belly-proof.

Photo by anaranar

Side A

Nothing like seeing two Indian men holding hands to show how homophobic Westerners really are.

It’s a sight that every Western visitor to India must greet with wonder: in a country where homosexuality is a grand taboo, male friends go on a stroll with fingers interlaced or arms around one another. Best friends might be spotted gently caressing the other’s hands while sharing a laugh.

It’s jarring, but only because they are right. Unlike the West, India hasn’t made all effort to eliminate the possibility for casual male-to-male contact. If anything, it has normalized it. When a man sits beside another one the bus, instead of shifting to create a millimetric buffer between them, they squeeze in tighter to accommodate a third one.

A drowsy worker on break might catch a few minutes of rest by laying his head on his mate’s lap. There are no dividers between urinals (to be fair, there are hardly any urinals since walls and curbs seem to do the job).

No Indian man will experience gay fear if his leg brushes against another man on a train. Good friends don’t have to make excuses to touch each other, like chest bumps or American football.

Meanwhile, men in the West can only safely express friendly affection when senselessly drunk. Wrestling on the carpet can also fulfill man-cuddle urges, but only if tempered with painful jabs to the arm. Actually, there’s no greater proof of Western men’s latent homo-erotic desires than professional wrestling.

Indian men hold hands because they know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Touch is a universal currency of closeness, and in India, it’s stronger than homo-paranoia.

“Now you sit on my lap.”

Side B

Nothing like seeing two Indian men holding hands to show how sexually repressed their society has become.

Though men are often seen being physically affectionate, you never see couples holding hands or lovers locked in a park bench embrace. In public buses, passengers shift seats so a man and a woman who don’t know each other don’t end up sitting together.

Public kisses have been known to spark riots, and every Indian film is censored to avoid any suggestion of normal sexuality.

In the country that wrote the Kama Sutra, heterosexual intimacy is strictly a private affair, and only accepted in the confines of an arranged marriage.

Indian men hold hands in public because they have no other choice.

This self-imposed sexual repression is released in thuggish ways. Organized rape gangs are common in large Indian cities. Indian women regularly suffer the indignities of harassment and assault, which goes by the sterile euphemism “eve teasing“.

Many Western women who visit India have a story of having her breasts and buttocks grabbed by a stranger, or of finding a peephole in their hotel room.

Indian trains have a women’s-only car out of sheer necessity. It just isn’t safe for them to be around men. And so men, until marriage, can only be physically intimate with their own friends.

It looks, to our eyes, strange and unnatural because it is.

We hope that the following pictures show faces of India that go beyond the typecast.

To view the slideshow in full screen, click the bottom right corner.

Cooking class in Kumily, India: lots of food, little satisfaction.

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As a general rule, cooking courses for tourists follow the following recipe:

1. Take cook of dubious skill and place him before a group of earnest culinary travellers.

2. Teach them three to five local dishes. Omit any history, context, or philosophy of food.

3. Serve it cold.

4. Charge them a 200% markup on ingredients and time.

5. Profit for a mediocre restaurant.

And so the earnest students return home able to robotically recreate three to five dishes. There’s little theory of how to pick and treat ingredients, or how to make variations and substitutions. No time is given to explain the basics of a local cuisine to understand how different dishes are related.

It’s lousy value for your money. So I stopped going to them. Instead, I go to restaurants that I like and ask the chef to teach me.

It’s the same as a tourist cooking course: you’ll simply learn how to cook the dishes you ask for. The chef won’t necessarily be a good teacher. You’ll have to learn by watching and asking questions.

But it will come at a much better price and you’re guaranteed to like the result.

This is especially doable in developing countries, where rules are wonderfully lax and people are always willing to make exceptions, especially when money is involved.

I’ve done this in Colombia, Brazil, Cambodia, and India. The cooks were flattered to be asked to share their recipes; it’s a huge compliment on their abilities.

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Instead of wasting money on a tourist cooking class, I suggest the alternative recipe:

1. Find a restaurant or food stall with good food. The less fancy the premises the better your chances of getting in the kitchen.

2. If possible, go during the low season. Restaurants will be hurting for customers and will be more willing to accommodate you. Also come when it’s not busy. The hours between lunch and dinner are ideal.

3. Tell the waiter how much you loved the food. Say you’d like to learn from the chef. Ask to speak to the manager. Going directly to the chef might upset the boss.

4. Compliment the manager on providing such a memorable experience. He may not know a cinnamon stick from cat turd, but you want him to like you. Ask if it’s possible to learn a dish or two from the chef.

5. If he consents, repeat step 4 on the chef.

6. Be clear on what you want: name the dishes you want to learn and how to prepare the ingredients. Don’t expect him to have a curriculum for you.

7. Discuss money. Offer to pay the menu price of the dishes. If they demand more, negotiate a reasonable rate.

8. Ask lots of questions. The chef will just do what he does every day. Have him explain every step you don’t understand. If the chef uses prepared stock ingredients like sauces, ask him to teach you those later.

9. Get out of the way. A restaurant kitchen will (almost) always be buzzing with frenzied activity. Let the staff members do their jobs.

10. Thank the chef, the manager, and the staff for their time. Tip them.

11. Repeat steps 1-10 at another restaurant. Do this enough, and you’ll see patterns between different dishes, giving you a solid understanding of the local cuisine and how to add your own poetry to it at home.

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A Kathakali actor performing at the Mudra cultural centre in Kumily.

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Convenience rules over the mountain town of Kumily, in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Most Keralan specialties, from spices, to wildlife, to theatre to martial arts can be found within its five or six streets. This makes Kummily a cultural Wal-Mart of South India.

But like any all-in-one, each component is of doubtful quality.

The town

Kumily is the base for exploring the Thekkady wildlife sanctuary, and has morphed completely into a tourist hub. Four main businesses line its streets: hotels, restaurants, Kashmiri textiles, and spices. Like any good Kerala tourist town, Ayurvedic spas are a dime a dozen.

Still, the town has a relaxed feel, where auto-rickshaws calmly wait for street cows saunter out of the way. Goats relax in front of restaurant doors and school children are always walking to and fro.

One of many tea plantations on the road from Kottayam to Kumily.

The park

Tourist brochures offer guided hikes, elephant rides, boat trips on the park’s reservoir, night safaris and tiger sightings. A kindly Muslim who works for the state tourist bureau discouraged me from half those activities.

The tigers, he said, are rare to spot, having migrated away from the human activity. The boat trips were crowded with Indian tourists and the night safari, in his words, were “not really worth it.”

Result: I did none of it.

The spices

Kumily’s cool mountain climate is ideal for the cultivation of spices and tea. It’s a major hub for the spice trade, and Indians from all over come to buy in bulk. Half the town’s stores are spice merchants, and it leaves one wondering how each one can make a living. But they do. There are always people, white or brown, negotiating a deal with the sellers.

Merchants insist they have a standard-grade batch of cardamon, cinnamon and cloves, and a premium organic stash.  My experience with other developing countries taught me that what is often sold as organic is the industrial stuff with a different label and a higher price tag. Unless you go with an expert, it’s hard to tell if the spices, oils and powder mixes are of good quality.

As an extra money maker, some sellers offer spice garden tours. A guide takes you through a dense patch of forest and points out the different spice bushes and trees. Again, this is of variable quality. In one tour, which sot me 200 rupees, a bored-looking woman simply names each plant and had be taste a piece of it.

Unsatisfied, I went to another man, who explained with knowledge and enthusiasm how each plant is cultivated, how the spices are used in food and their medicinal properties in Ayurvedic healing. It cost me 100 rupees.

A black/white/green pepper plant at a spice garden.

The culture

Kumily has two cultural houses with daily shows in Kathakali, the colourful and voiceless Keralan theatre that recounts tales from the Hindu epics, and Kalari, the spectacular Keralan martial art.

I watched both at the Mudra Cultural Centre, and again a the Kalari show at the rival and neighbouring house. The Kalari was identical: the sword-fights, fire dancing, displays of acrobatics and disarming of a knife-wielding opponent were exactly the same. It made me suspect both houses are owned by the same company built to accommodate the high demand.

The Kathakali was fascinating and well-explained, but I had the feeling it was abbreviated and simplified for tourists.

Kalari fighters prepare for a demonstration with fire.

The summary

Fro the time-crunched traveler who wants a concentrated South Indian experience, Kumily is perfect. The cool weather offers a lovely respite from the searing heat of the coast. Its position at the border with Tamil Nadu State is also ideal for moving on.

Just don’t expect to come away fulfilled by an authentic cultural contact.

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Photo by Biji Kurian

It’s a question that must dog many a discerning traveler to India: should I take advantage of the plentiful and cheap Ayurvedic spas? Even though it’s a travesty of the ancient healing system?

All across India, especially in the state of Kerala, visitors are beckoned with glossy brochures showing a bikini-clad blonde doused in oil by a wise-looking woman. “Ayurvedic body massage: 600 rupees,” the price list reads.

It’s tempting. But at its heart, it’s not Ayurveda. It’s packaged exotica for tourists.

What is Ayurveda?

First, let’s get one fact clear: there’s no such thing as Ayurverdic massage. Not in the purest of terms.

Ayurveda is a 5000-year old holistic discipline that uses herbs, oils and foods to treat people. Unlike Western medicine, which targets specific symptoms, Ayurveda looks at the entire organism. A treatment may last weeks and involve repeated oil applications, a prescribed diet, and a strict schedule.

The massage is in fact just the application of essential oils. It was never meant, like Swedish and Thai massages, for temporary relaxation.

How did Ayurveda get trendy?

Like with so many other things, it was celebrity endorsement. Once Madonna and Naomi Campbell tootled about its benefits, Ayurvedic spas started sprouting everywhere. They offered one-time treatments promising ancient wisdom in concentrated form.

The cosmetics industry pounced on the trend and launched a line of Ayurvedic products as “Aveda,” truncated for Western mnemonics. Ironically enough, in India, “Aveda” means “against the Vedas,” the ancient Hindu scriptures that originated the science.

Predictably, Ayurveda purists are incensed.

So should you stay away?

Not at all. Yes, many of these so-called Ayurvedic spas offer only a passing resemblance to the real stuff. But so what?

I did a four-day Ayurvedic treatment for tense shoulder muscles. The practitioner had suggested seven, but I didn’t want to spend that long in the dull little Kerala town of Kannur, where there are a few Ayurveda schools. He consented anyway. It was still money for him.

It didn’t cure my tension. But each application felt good. They left me relaxed, fragrant, energized. And they helped me understand the discipline a little more.

The central question, then, should not be “Is it wrong to receive a single massage,” but “What’s wrong with receiving a single massage?”

It’s standard these days to isolate one piece of a much greater system and use it on its own. Yoga, originally, was a way of life, not a fitness class at the local gym. Apple became the atomizer-in-chief with the iTunes Music Store.

And in this age of rampant cross-pollination, where Tae-bo, Brazilian jiujitsu, and crème brûlée cappuccinos are hardly daring hybrids, what is truly pure?

It creates jobs

It’s a benefit that can’t be ignored. Ayurvedic spas provides many Indians with decent wages in hospitality. Migrant Ayurvedic healers find themselves unable to practice as doctors in countries with strict standards. But they can work if it’s disguised as a vanity item.

And it helps popularize a fascinating discipline as faith in Western medicine wavers and people seek alternative options.

So treat yourself to an oil rub. Just call it by what it is.

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Travel around the southern half of the subcontinent and you’ll see that it’s still learning the whole tourism thing.

Beach resorts are budding bric-a-bracs of family-owned inns and restaurants. Reliable information takes some footwork to attain. And when you do see tourists, the vast majority are Indians on pilgrimage.

I haven’t been to the north, but I know that it’s far more developed and gets the lion’s share of foreign visitors.

This makes South India uniquely challenging. It can be frustrating, exhausting, discouraging. The noise, the filth, the dilapidated cities, the public urination and loud expectoration vastly outnumber the pleasant moments. It makes you want to cut your losses and head to more civilized corners.

This, I learned, is the coward’s way.

India is the least Westernized country I ever visited. It’s a societal proof of entropy, that the most natural state of things is the least organized. That to create order takes work.

It’s the visitor who has to do the work. With time and effort, the disarray starts to assume recognizable forms and what was unbearable becomes a mere inconvenience between you and your reward.

This is how to get there.

Get out of the cities

India’s charm is in her villages, mountains and coast. Life is slower. You don’t have to dodge careening rickshaws, sidestep flying phlegm, or inhale lorry smog. You can breathe easier.

I had the most memorable experiences renting a motorbike and driving along the Kerala coast, stopping at fishing villages and being welcomed by the locals.

Get invited to a home

Doesn’t matter how. Use Couchsurfing. Chat up a family at a restaurant. Get caught outside in the rain at a residential area. You’ll be invited in. Indians morph into different people once inside their walls. You’ll see how unshakeably generous (and tidy) they can be.

Read a book

Anything that will help you understand the customs, the superstitions, and some of the history. I recommend The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone, a collection of essays by Shashi Tharoor.

Know where to go

Unlike many places, South India is not, generally, a good place for independent exploration. Strolling around a town, you won’t likely stumble upon a hidden gem. Arm yourself with local information and be surgical in your touring.

Join the mess

Eat with your hand. Burp. Spit. Cut in line. Do all the things you were programmed not to do. It’s liberating. And it makes it less jarring when you see others doing it.

Seek the finer things

You appreciate India more when you spend time with the cultural gifts it gave the world: learn about her music, the styles, the instruments. Watch her better films. Go to the theatre and to dance performances. Take a cooking course.

Take breaks

Travelling around India is taxing. Recharge by doing nothing at a beach town or a cool mountain village.

Find other travellers

While I usually avoid other tourists (I don’t travel to be around my own kind) India has proven an exception. Fellow Westerners offer a comforting familiarity. You can have more detailed, nuanced conversations, share stories, experiences, and frustrations. And you can glean some wisdom from someone who has been where you are.

Bribe away

You won’t heal the country’s corruption cancer by abstaining from it. 100 rupees, little more than US$2, goes a long way. Slip someone a bill before receiving a service and watch the difference.

Accept inexplicability

Don’t try to understand the contradictions you see. It is what it is.

He should suffer for warping my expectations in such an inhumane way.

This is what you get for $5 in the town of Kottayam, Kerala state.

The bed:
A colony of mildew is positioned to jump on your head in your sleep and take over your brain. The pillow case comes pre-soiled with one (1) pubic hair.

The sink

The bathroom
A 20-watt lightbulb provides mood lighting, casting a honeyed glow on the tile grime.

The spiders are complimentary.