Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Back to the basics

A taste of rustic life is what city folks yearn for. And this is exactly what farm tourism is all about

RURAL TOUCH In all kinds of tourism, tourists could do with some degree of responsibility

Back-to-the-roots and nostalgia work in the tourism sector and how! City folks who are fed up with traffic snarls, neon lights and air-conditioned rooms, could do with some fresh air, green environs and direct contact with Mother Earth. That experience gives them a high. So, farm tourism is the latest way to woo the tourist.

Responsible tourism

Now responsible tourism is inexorably linked to farm tourism in Kerala, though in all kinds of tourism, one could do with some degree of responsibility. The `organic' tag is intertwined with this, getting more mileage from well-heeled tourists who are now used to eating organic. The scenic locales seen from a country boat in the backwaters now seem jaded since the brochures are too full of it. The State Government too feels that "responsible tourism" could be a major thrust area in the State's tourism policy.

Ideal in many ways

One spin-off of responsible tourism is that the local community shares the benefits of tourism. The other is that tourism development projects do not cause any environmental hazards. Thus, farm tourism is ideal in so many ways because the terms `responsible tourism' and `culinary tourism' automatically gain entry.

Says Francis Paul, who is into farm tourism in Mala: "We have been doing it for the last four years and we can proudly say that we are also practising responsible tourism in different ways. I am not the only one who benefits, but so many people in my village do." Small groups from different parts of the world have been visiting the village, Parappuram, in Mala, to experience life in natural surroundings, in reverse gear on the time machine. They are brought to the rural area in hired buses and vans.

"So, the driver and the cleaner benefit," says Paul. They are put up in local homes for a fee. The food is cooked in a single place and a huge `shamiana' is put up, where they are welcomed and served food. It is local food, nothing exotic.

Many foreigners, who club their holiday with some project or the other, look forward to working in the paddy field themselves. "Sometimes, I take a paddy field on lease for a few days just to give the tourists this experience. They jump into the mud. No boots, no gloves. There are a few women to teach them to plant rice saplings. Old-world ploughs with oxen and men with hoes add to the experience," says Paul.

The dress code is strict — only long Bermudas and long shirts are allowed. Last year, there were problems in the village when, as the temperature rose, they did not quite stick to the dress code! They work all morning and in the evening, they are treated to cultural programmes like Parayanthullal and Margamkali by village artistes. "That is cultural tourism," says Paul.

After the effort, what happens to the paddy field and the rice saplings planted? "They wither away because it is not the season for planting," explains Paul. Around 65 people benefit in the village when one group comes, he claims.

Different experience

Responsible tourism, as the West sees it, is not harming ecology, not doing anything to offend the sensibilities and culture of the land as well as giving the tourist a taste of the land. Continental cuisine is okay sometimes but what the tourist wants is a different experience to take back home. Kerala is rising to the occasion with a lot of professional agencies giving the tourist an opportunity to commune with nature and live as one among the locals, far from the madding crowds.

PREMA MANMADHAN

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail