It would be dark soon, we could tell, because the sun had dipped behind the far ridge of the absurdly picturesque valley, but there didn't seem to be any urgency to return to our bungalow. The tea country of the Western Ghats in southern India, the knuckle of mountains separating lush Kerala from the plains of Tamil Nadu, is tranquil to the point of caricature and the only danger lay in the eyes of our seven-year-old, Esme, who feared we might encounter more tea pickers.
Earlier, walking up from the bungalow which had once belonged to the English manager of the vast Tallayar estate, the last of these to finish work had descended past us. Three women, Tamils wearing saris, had pinched Esme's cheeks so hard her smile had morphed into a grimace. Now the tea pickers had all reached their homes further down the valley, from where later in the dark we would hear Tamil film music drifting up. Instead, we were stopped by the recently installed manager of the estate, having first been alerted to his presence by the growl of his gleaming Enfield motorbike. Elephants, he said, roamed these hillsides; and yes, they could be very dangerous and yes, we'd best hurry back to the bungalow.
Packing for this two-week adventure, we had not counted being savaged by wild pachyderms among the possible dangers. Instead, there had been questions about what would Sam and Esme eat and what sort of malaria pills should we take, or would they be simply overwhelmed by the country itself. Before Zoe and I met we had both travelled around India. The three weeks I'd spent in the south with a gang of teenage mates, rucksacks filled with filthy washing on our backs, had left me with the potentially foolhardy idea of wanting to instil the fascination I'd felt with this part of the world in two under-10s whose weltanschauung had hitherto been bound by Ryanair's flight routes.
Kerala's history is intertwined with that of travellers seduced by its spectacular beauty. In Cochin, to which we flew via Sri Lanka, there is still - just about - one of the oldest Jewish diaspora communities in the world as well as India's oldest European church, St Francis, where the explorer Vasco da Gama was originally buried.
Our own journey had seen Zoe pick up a bug on the flight, and the family's entrance into the country had been heralded by a fellow passenger announcing to the stewardesses, 'she is vomiting', with the sort of hard, percussive 'v' and elongated vowel sound that also announces India. So much for the children's welfare.
But this was a holiday at which we were chucking the savings, and whereas last time it had been trains and buses, now we were met by our own car and driver, the heroic Rajesh, with whom we weaved calmly north for an hour-and-a-half to what we could see, in the warm light of morning, were the Athirapally Falls. This is a popular spot for local tourists, and the view from our adjoining bedrooms at our eco-friendly hotel of the Chalakudy River crashing down 80 feet was spectacular.
The falls had also attracted a film crew shooting a Malayalam movie in the forest when Sam, Esme and I sweated past later in the heat, with a chorus line of extras and a troop of monkeys waiting in the shade. For the children, it immediately felt very different from the school playground on a Friday afternoon, and later, on a drive deeper into the forest, we saw deer and a giant red squirrel, but no elephants here either, despite the promised chance of a sighting.
The deal had been that we would split the trip between wildlife, beach and culture and next morning, with Zoe recovered, we drove back to Cochin. The route was initially through lush countryside, with Rajesh pointing out the banana trees, tapioca, rubber trees and much more, as if this were a botany lesson. This is a fertile land for religion, too, and beside the temples and mosques, there were huge churches with gaudy paint jobs to enable them compete with their Hindu counterparts. Imposing mansions also studded the roadside, evidence of Kerala's growing prosperity.
Long the most literate state in India, it is benefiting from workers at every level, from construction workers to medics, sending money home from newfound jobs in the Gulf. Tourism plays its part, too, and in Cochin the sort of boutique hotel that simply didn't exist in India twenty years ago - backpacker's budget or not -was awaiting us.
Before dinner in the courtyard of the chic Malabar House, there was the inevitable visit to the city's famous Chinese fishing nets and then to a kathakali show. Genuine performances of this ancient form of dance-drama apparently last through the night, but even though this show was thankfully truncated and the protagonists looked spectacular in their lurid make-up, there was still the question of why the children should be subjected to it when I had suffered a similar show that had bored me close to tears 20 years ago. But it proved a surprise hit thanks to the woman who explained the action to the audience and could have passed for Les Dawson in drag; coincidentally, she also shared his comic timing.
'What you will see now is the emotion of anger,' she would mutter. And the dancer would half raise an eyebrow. 'Now you will see the emotion of joy.' The same chap would curl his lip. The subtleties passed us by, and I'm afraid to say that for the next 10 days, kathakali became a running joke in the family.
