KOCHI: At walking distance from Vanilla County is the best of nature’s bounty - three waterfalls with jostling water. Coffee guides me as I scurry between them. The first one has cascading waterfalls within. Walking up the shallow stream, you reach what is undoubtedly the most serene pocket of this planet. Coffee is as excited to swim up as I. The water is at best three feet deep until you reach the bigger waterfall on top, which falls into a pond. As I climb down, a local mechanic, Davis, greets Coffee and me with a few anecdotes.
Such interactions are quite common as you walk around Mavady. People are as friendly as the family in Vanilla County, especially if Coffee is leading the way. Walk another 500m from the cascading falls and another stream awaits. This year’s downpour has enlivened Mavady’s interiors and its water bodies.
Around afternoon on the second day of my stay, I decide to visit another private stream a jeep ride away. Rajeev, Vanilla County’s well-versed driver, takes the wheel and Maju joins me. “How about we stop at the toddy shop?” he asks. I have no reason to refuse. Soon, we arrive at Mavady Toddy shop, where fresh palm wine awaits.
If you have tasted toddy in Kochi or Alappuzha, you know it comes mostly from coconut trees. Palm wine tastes richer. The sweet toddy collected in the morning is used to make an ecstatic syrup back in Vanilla County, called Pani. “You condense around 10 litres of sweet palm wine to get a bottle full of the nectar,” Silu tells me as she serves me some pani with steaming puttu the next morning.
After toddy and a jeep ride with a very excited Coffee, I reach the third waterfall, which is, again, full from the summer showers. As Coffee swims around, I sit on one of the rocks contemplating the last time I felt this peaceful, and promising myself I will return soon - to nature and Vanilla County, the homestay away from home!