I am lying in a hammock after Sunday lunch, watching the sunlight filter through the coconut palms, listening to our hosts Victor and Jini Dey playing a lively game of cocktail-fuelled rummy with their friends. Ah, the planter's life is an enviable one!
Or so it would seem at Tranquil, an eight-room hideaway on a 400-acre coffee and vanilla estate in the unspoilt Wayanad district of north Kerala. But the fact is, the planter's life is in jeopardy. The bottom has dropped out of the tea and coffee markets. Kerala, once one of the leading producers in the world, is now losing out to cheaper suppliers from Sri Lanka, China and Vietnam. Pepper and cardamom, too, once hot commodities, are no longer commanding top prices.
Quality tourism is the new gold and planters are responding by turning their properties into guest houses, offering full-board, plantation tours and nature walks in invariably heavenly surroundings. Estate director Victor and his wife Jini lead the field with Tranquil, where they capture the old lazy, indulgent way of life while ensuring modern efficiency and comforts.
"We had a small taste of the planter's life," says Victor over drinks on his terrace that evening. "Fifteen years ago, the pressure was much less. The industry was doing well, the weather was on our side with plenty of rain. We'd play tennis in the afternoon, go on fishing trips and picnics. Those were the glory days ... but even then, a senior planter said to me, 'Young man, we lived; you're just existing!'"
If that's the case, then the Deys certainly know how to exist. As professional planters working for a wealthy proprietor, they were given carte blanche to transform the estate and a pair of dilapidated bungalows. It's clear from the moment you enter the gates, driving past shade-netted vanilla vines and orderly coffee plants to their own well-tamed tropical gardens, that they are not keen on half measures.
Jini presides over the kitchen, devising spectacular lunch and dinner-party menus around seasonal produce. Guests dine at one long table amid an array of crisp napery and floral art. Verandas and paths are swept twice daily. Sheets and towels are reassuringly white, a hibiscus is placed on the bed at night and bathrooms are almost as large as the bedrooms.
One afternoon Victor bundles us into his jeep and careers up a twisting track, past coffee bushes that have blossomed overnight, sprouting cream pom-poms with the scent of jasmine. We arrive at a viewpoint over the vast plains, and within moments, platters of onion pakoras and blueberry tartlets appear, to help the sun go down. At the cocktail hour, Jini appears in a kaftan and Victor in crisp kurta-pyjama, eager for us to taste his latest experiments - vanilla-infused gin and vanilla vodka.
The following day, he shows us his new venture, 40 acres of precious vanilla orchids. Aside from tourism, vanilla is the new hope for planters, with world demand exceeding supply by 700%. The neon pound signs in our eyes soon fade, however, as we learn about Princess Vanilla. This is one high-maintenance crop, with a drying process that defies belief (dip beans in water at 65 degrees for three minutes, wrap them in a woollen blanket for the night, lay them out for eight days under a black cloth, leave them for a further three months in a humidified room).
Perched at 1,600m, the atmosphere at Windermere Estate near Munnar is less festive but the setting - amid clipped tea plantations that line the vertiginous hills - more dramatic. Dr Simon bought Windermere as a working cardamom and coffee estate 18 years ago but when hoteliers started bidding for his property in 1999, he built his own five-bedroom "farmhouse" for guests. We stay in one of two new spacious cottages, with fabulous views over the misty mountains and forests.
While Simon has avoided anything that smacks of a hotel (no reception, informal staff), this is less a homestay than a glorified B&B, where you dine at your own table in the chalet-style kitchen/dining room.
After a gargantuan breakfast of South Indian uppma (like couscous), appam (little white pancakes and vegetable curry, along with crispy bacon, tiny sausages and eggs), we set off for a nearby peak, hiking through the tea plants, marvelling at how pluckers can pluck at this gradient.
Later we tour his plantation, through virgin forest of soaring ironwood and banyan trees and rustly arcades of cardamom leaves. By the end of our trip through Kerala, we are spice experts, easily detecting peppervines, with their dangling bunches of green peppercorns, and coffee bushes, with their red beans.
Our spice-spotting skills are fine-tuned at Serenity, a classic 1920s plantation house on a rubber and spice estate in the lowlands of southern Kerala. On a stroll through the grounds, Jacob the gardener introduces us to nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, tamarind and cloves as well as cocoa, banana, pineapple, mango, papaya and jackfruit. We pass rubber trees with coconut shells collecting the sticky sap and washing lines with sheets of rubber hanging up like old dishcloths.
Serenity feels like a private, staffed villa, with verandahs, planters chairs and wide wooden floorboards that creak like an old boat with each tread. The styling owes more to European tastes and standards than most properties in Kerala, And so it's no surprise to know that the property has been leased from the owners by German designer Joerg Drechsel and his Basque wife Txuku, who created the award-winning heritage boutique hotel Malabar House in Cochin.
There are just five large, lofty guest rooms, all sparingly decorated with the original hardwood furniture and pieces from Joerg's antique collection, including carved animal heads and beaky masks from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Chefs are trained under Malabar House's Swiss chef, resulting in delicious pastas as well as curries and seafood dishes flavoured with local spices and coconut milk.
We elect to spend a day with Lakshmi, the local elephant, who used to work in a circus. She slumps down on bent legs so that my four-year-old daughter Simi and I can climb aboard. It's not the most comfortable of rides, sitting astride her lolloping shoulders with her flapping ears whacking my bare feet, but we enjoy cruising at treetop level through the village.
Leaving Simi and the mahout frolicking with Lakshmi, I return to my hammock - ah yes, it's the plantation life for me.
Way to go
Getting there: Greaves Travel (020-7487 9111, greavesindia.com) tailor-make your trip. An 11-day/9-night tour, with return British Airways flights London-Mumbai, costs £1,635 per person, including internal transport and transfers, one night in Mumbai, two nights at Serenity, two nights at Windermere, one night at Malabar House, Cochin, and three nights at Tranquil.
Where to stay: Tranquil (tranquilresort.com) has doubles including full board for £121. Serenity at Kanam Estate (malabarhouse.com) has doubles for £86 inc breakfast. Windermere Estate (windermeremunnar.com) has cottages for £78, doubles for £59 for two people, including breakfast and dinner. Lunch costs £4 per person.
Further information: Indian Tourist Office: 020-7437 3677, indiatouristoffice.org
Flight time: London-Cochin:10hrs, 45mins
Time difference: +4 hrs
Country code: 0091
£1= 72.33 rupees
