Cruising the backwaters, Kerala

Around 900km of interconnected lakes and canals make up Kerala's extraordinary, watery "backwaters". It's like an enormous, rural Venice, with houses lining the edges of the waterways and residents carrying out their daily errands by canoe. The only solid bits of ground are the canal banks, which are just wide enough for one house and the narrow tow path which links the houses. As far as you can see is nothing but water, rice paddies, coconut palms and banana trees.

The best way to observe all this is from the deck of a traditionally-styled house boat, which can be chartered for scenic and relaxing one or two-night excursions. In between eating the delicious meals cooked by your onboard chef, you can while away the hours in a wicker chair or day bed, watching the endlessly fascinating backwater life go by as you cruise the labyrinth of canals.

Our excellent onboard cooks treated us to huge spreads of authentic Keralan food: crispy-fried, delicate and moist whole fish; tasty vegetable curries; steamed vegetables flavoured with coconut, mustard seeds, turmeric and curry leaves; and a rich, dark chicken curry.

The residents of the backwaters bathe, brush their teeth, wash their clothes and do their dishes in the murky water of the canals. They cross the water by canoe or bridge several times a day to get to school, church or the shops. But I got the feeling the backwaters both sustain and threaten people's livelihoods in this low-lying community. We saw a few houses flooded with a foot or more of water, with many other residents reinforcing the banks outside their homes with sandbags against the rising water level.

Recipes for a Keralan feast

Many guest houses in Fort Cochin offer cooking classes, which offer a fun way to gain a deeper understanding of Keralan food. Predictably, coconuts are a very common ingredient in the cuisine of this part of India. Garlic and shallots are also almost always used, along with turmeric. Most vegetable dishes include cumin.

Here are the recipes we made at our cooking class. NB:

• Cup measures in the recipes are tea cups.
• Coconut oil adds an authentic flavour dimension, but sunflower oil is fine.
• Where curry leaves are called for, don't substitute anything if they are unavailable - just leave them out.

Keralan fish curry - serves 4

This special dish is traditionally reserved for weddings or festivals. Make the curry 1.5 days before it is to be served, to allow the flavours to properly infuse.

500g firm fish fillets, cubed; or prawns

1/2 finger sized piece of ginger

6-7 cloves garlic

1-2 shallots

10-14 curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

4-5 tsp tamarind paste, soaked for 10 min in a cup of water

FOR THE MASALA:

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp ground fenugreek (not more or it will be bitter)

4-5 tsp chilli powder (preferably Kashmiri)

1/2 glass water

Combine ingredients and set aside.

Finely slice the garlic, ginger and shallots. In a pan over a medium heat, add 4 tbsp coconut or sunflower oil. Add the mustard seeds and when they pop, add the garlic, ginger, shallots and curry leaves. Sauté.

Add the masala to the softened vegetables, and stir in the pan until it darkens and separates - this is called "roasting the masala". Add more oil if it dries out too much. Add the tamarind paste and 1 further cup of water (1/2 cup if using prawns). Add a big pinch of salt and stir.

Add the fish, cover and cook until the fish is just done.

Green Banana Thoral - serves 4

This tasty recipe suits almost any vegetable - cabbage, carrot, potato, parsnip, pumpkin, spinach etc.

300g green bananas or other veg, diced

1 onion, finely chopped

A couple of cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 green chilli, finely chopped

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 cup fresh grated coconut or 3/4 cup desiccated coconut, soaked for 10-15 minutes in warm water

Remove the banana skin with a vegetable peeler before dicing the flesh. Keep in a bowl of water to prevent browning.

Combine all ingredients in a pan over medium heat and add half a glass of water (don't add water if using soft veges, eg spinach or mushrooms). Stir and add salt to taste. When cooked, fold in some mustard seeds and curry leaves that have been sautéed in coconut oil until the seeds pop, as a garnish.

Dhal - serves 4

1 cup orange split lentils, rinsed

2 1/2 cups water

1 tsp sunflower oil

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tomato, diced

1 onion, finely chopped

Combine all ingredients in a pan and cook over medium heat for 15-20 min.

FOR THE MASALA:

1 tsp mustard seeds

1-2 shallots, finely chopped

6-10 cloves garlic, finely chopped

6-7 curry leaves

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp chilli powder (or more if you like a spicy dhal)

Pop the mustard seeds in the oil over a medium to high heat. Add the shallots, garlic and curry leaves. Sauté to soften.  Turn up the heat and add the spices. Add this masala to the cooked lentils, and add salt to taste. Boil for five minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Pea Masala - serves 4

You can use either chickpeas or green peas. Soak chickpeas overnight.

200g peas

1 shallot, finely chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tomato, diced

1 cup coconut milk

FOR THE MASALA:

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin 

1/2 tsp chilli powder

1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper

1 tsp garam masala

Add a little water and mix to combine.

Sauté the shallots and garlic in 3 tbsp oil. Add the masala and "roast" for three or four minutes until dark and separated. Add the tomato and peas, with a little water if using fresh or frozen green peas. Add coconut milk and cook for 5 minutes. Add salt to taste.

When cooked, fold in some mustard seeds and curry leaves that have been sautéed in coconut oil until the seeds pop, as a garnish.

Chapati - serves 4

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup lukewarm water

1/4 tsp salt (added to the water)

Mix into a dough and knead for 2-3 minutes. Add 2 tsp sunflower oil and knead lightly. Leave at room temperature for half an hour.

Form golf ball sized balls of dough and roll in flour. Roll out the balls until 1-2 mm thick. Get a dry frying pan hot and add the chapati one by one. Warm both sides first, then brush with oil and brown on both sides. Eat straight away while still hot.

Fort Cochin

Sleepy Fort Cochin is only a short ferry ride from mainland India but it might as well be on another planet. In Ernakulam, the mainland part of the city of Cochin, the streets are crowded with the usual crush of rickshaws, scooters, stray dogs, stray cows and people. Fort Cochin is a dramatic contrast. A Portuguese colonial outpost from the beginning of the 16th century, the town has escaped modern development; leaving crumbling mansions looming over streets shaded by lush, mature trees. Several of the mansions have been sensitively restored to their former glory and now serve as gorgeous boutique hotels: think airy verandas, billowing muslin, wicker chairs and teak. It's a place to escape to for a few days to unwind and refresh. We might have even forgotten that we were in India, were it not for the suffocating January heat and humidity.

An impressive sight on the northern tip of the island are a row of enormous Chinese fishing nets. These massive, cantilevered wooden structures are still in daily use and you can watch groups of up to six fishermen lowering each one into the water and raising them up again, ideally containing fish. Beside the nets every evening, several stalls appear selling fish so fresh some of them were still gasping. We bought a dozen big tiger prawns and persuaded the proprietor of a nearby restaurant to coat them in tandoori marinade, impale them on long skewers and plunge them into the smoky, searing depths of the tandoor oven.

Hampi

Hampi, site of the once great but now ruined city of Vijayanagar, is a hot and dusty place in central south India. It's a firm favourite on the backpackers' circuit but still offers a taste of the 'real' India. There are people scrubbing clothes and bathing down at the river ghats. Cows, dogs, roosters and monkeys share the dirt streets with women in bright saris carrying basket loads of everything on their heads.

Over the river from the sacred centre of Hampi Bazaar you can stay in huts arranged around gardens, with restaurants overlooking the rice paddies. Ours had a chill-out area of low tables and cushions where we passed a couple of lazy afternoons resting our sightseeing-weary feet. Every now and then a cow would wander across the rice paddy. Each cow had a white bird hopping along beside it (don't ask me what kind of bird). The bird would jump up and peck the flies or insects that landed on the cow. Seems a mutually-beneficial partnership.

Hampi has a whole lot of uninspiring restaurants and one excellent one: Mango Tree, which you reach via a path through a banana plantation. The atmosphere is lovely, with terraced seating so everyone gets a view of the river. It's a vegetarian restaurant but the choice of dishes on the lengthy menu is overwhelming. My mixed vegetable "mango tree special curry" was sweet and smoky.

We tried our first Indian street food in Hampi: idli (spongy and rather plain fermented rice cakes) dipped in spicy sambar and coconut chutney and served with deep-fried battered green chillies.

South Goa, India

At 7am on Christmas Day, Palolem Beach in south Goa was cool and silent; populated only by fishermen hauling their brightly-painted wooden fishing boats up the sand, stray dogs and cows. Slowly the sun broke through the high swaying leaves of the coconut palms and cast golden light over the sand. Then the beach gradually came alive. Dreadlocked backpackers emerged from their coconut leaf thatch huts to unroll yoga mats, beach bar owners set up umbrellas and sun loungers, and we found breakfast.

After having our flight delayed by four days due to snow in London, we had travelled through the night to get to the beach by Christmas Day and we were exhausted. So a glass of mixed fresh fruit juice and a banana pancake - typical backpacker fodder on beaches all over the tropics - set us up well for a soporific morning on sun loungers under the shade of the coconut palms.

Our week-long stay split between three beautiful south Goan beaches (Palolem, Agonda and Polem) gave us time to fully appreciate the delicious seafood-based cuisine. Displaying Portuguese influences following four centuries of colonial rule, it's complex and often fiery (the world-famous vindaloo is a Goan dish).

Polem beach is a pretty, palm-fringed crescent of sand in the far south of the state. It's undeveloped as yet, so should you choose to stay the night in one of the three palm-thatch huts on offer, your only company will be the handful of staff who run the beach restaurant, their canine and bovine friends, and Chris from Manchester who can't drag himself away and has been there since October.

The beach restaurant doesn't look like much from the outside but the food is amazing. There is no menu and the food on offer reflects the day's catch. Sitting at a plastic table under the shade of a tarpaulin we feasted on crunchy deep-fried cauliflower florets and hot green chillies coated in a sweet, sticky sauce, and the fish curry was light and spicy. Earlier, while on my morning run on the beach, I saw a woman peeling prawns that had just come off the fishing boats. Sure enough, they were on offer at lunchtime and arrived at our table in two ways: fried in crunchy, light batter and served with a sweet, rich and spicy masala sauce; and in a coconutty curry sauce spiked with coriander.

Seafood barbecues on the beach are another of Goa's culinary treats. Our best one was at Agonda beach, where we sat at tables on the sand and tucked into a feast of calamari, snapper and gigantic prawns coated in spicy tandoori marinade and grilled to perfection over charcoal.

At the far north end of Palolem beach, away from the music and crowds, there is a little restaurant called Ordo Sensei. You have to cross a foot bridge over a stream to get there and it feels like another world as you lie back on cushions and watch the monkeys playing in the mango trees. Unlike all the other beach restaurants which proudly boast their "multicuisine" offerings of Indian food, Thai food, Continental food, Chinese food, Tibetan food, Israeli food and Goan food almost as an afterthought, this place has a simple menu of purely local dishes. My coconut milk and papaya curry was delicate and light with complex spices - simply delicious.