Kerala is calling

As rapid development threatens to dent the southern Indian state's reputation as an eco haven, Kevin Rushby meets the greens fighting to preserve the traditional way of life. I'M lying on my back. It's night and a tropical rain shower is pattering gently on the thatched coconut leaves.

Lovely. But there is something else too: a skittering and rustling sound. A creature is moving quickly across the roof. I flick on the torch. Directly above me in the thatch a hand-span-sized spider is tracking a pale-winged moth back and forth. It's an upside-down mini-safari, a life and death drama.

"You wouldn't get this kind of entertainment in a sealed air-conditioned room," I tell myself firmly. "Thank you, Lord, for eco-tourism."

In the morning my friend Raj is pleased to hear of giant arachnids in his roofs. "They keep the bugs down - all part of the eco-friendly experience." He's built what he claims to be a genuinely "green" house up in the western Ghat hills of Kerala, and he wants to show me around.

"The coconut leaves for the roof are from the trees here. They're cool and airy - no need for air-conditioning. Floors are rammed earth, walls are strengthened with bamboo, our electricity is solar and our water is from a spring."

He takes me on a tour of the hillsides, scrambling up to the viewpoint from where we can see Kerala stretched out beneath us, a sea of coconut trees with hardly a break.

"Don't be misled by the view," Raj warns me. "Below the treetops, Kerala is really struggling. We're on the brink of an environmental disaster."

"He's not the only one to think so. Under a recent headline, "God's Disowned Country," lampooning the Kerala state motto, the magazine India Today thundered of "large-scale devastation of environment at its famed beaches, backwaters and hills."

Even just a decade ago India appeared to be a country with impressive green credentials. Almost everyone travelled by public transport; ox-carts were common; wastes like bottles, boxes and rags were collected, sold and recycled; millions cooked on dried cow dung and drank their tea from terracotta cups.

Despite some huge polluting industries and problems of rapid population expansion, Indians did seem to have ready access to traditions of sustainability and environmental responsibility that could make a success out of the Keralan vision. Now, a few years on, some say that commitment is disappearing under a landslide of construction and economic development.

Raj's use of local materials looks eccentric in comparison to the new concrete buildings going up.

"They use local sand for the cement," he points out, "but a lot of it is mined illegally from the backwaters, destroying the rivers."

At Poovar, an island created by freshwater channels close to the sea, Mark and Sujeewa Reynolds, owners of small-scale resort Friday's Place, told me where the money was coming from. "Dubai. There's a lot of non-resident Indian money flowing in from there."

Poovar is a place that has, as yet, escaped the worst excesses of development. Rivers are lined with coconuts and birdlife abounds. Friday's Place is a delightfully low-key retreat of stilted thatched lodges connected by wooden walkways. Mark is pragmatic about building a resort - wary of any bold claims of eco-friendliness.

Further north, near Alleppey, Marari Beach resort is a very different operation, spread over a huge area with all the trappings of an upmarket beachside resort: swimming pools galore and a swanky restaurant. Vegetables and herbs are grown on site and much of the cooking is done on methane produced by a huge bio-digester.

Adrian Briggs, British owner of nearby Fragrant Nature Resort, has found building an eco-lodge much tougher than he imagined when he sold his London home and set out for Kerala three years ago. He is unimpressed by Kerala government avowals of environmentalist objectives. "Soon after the state government announced the eco- tourism initiative they also abolished the tax discount on non-AC rooms."

Sadly, Adrian has decided to leave - a pity since Fragrant Nature is an exceptional place - and his view now is that eco-tourism may do more harm than good.

A few miles away I saw Keppel beach, north of the backpacker resort of Varkala, which is one of India's best. At sunset, I watched a pod of dolphins cruising north, feeding on the tuna that were following the shoals of anchovies.

The coast and backwaters are the focus of many problems in Kerala. Move inland and it is still possible to find a slower, more traditional way of life. At Palakkad, I discovered a place called Ayurveda Mana, an ayurvedic retreat built around an ancient royal palace of the Thampurans, a ruling dynasty.

Sajeev Kurup, a descendant of that ruling family, explained to me how the Mana had been created. "Our family always had strong interests in Kerala cultural arts like the martial art, kalari, and also elephant-training and elephant medicine." He grins at my reaction. "Yes, we practise elephant Ayurveda - you can even train to be a mahout here."

Among all the Ayurvedic treatment centres around India, Ayurveda Mana must have strong claims to being the most authentic. After a vigorous foot massage (that's a massage done with the feet) - I was escorted to my airy spacious bedroom by an attendant with an umbrella, as is required by Ayurvedic texts. Food is plain.

Gopinath Parayil is a local emigre who came home and saw how the loss of ancient traditions were impoverishing the state. "My home river, the Nila, was dying - over-mined, over-fished, over-used," he told me at Ayurveda Mana. "And communities around the riverbanks were disappearing too. As a child I remember seeing the Pulluvar people, snake-worshippers, come to the door. They'd sing to celebrate the rice harvest. Now there is no harvest and they don't come any more."

Gopi decided to do something positive. He went in search of them. Pulluvars were the traditional bards of Kerala, but they had not found a place in the new tourist-friendly culture, perhaps because of their low-caste status.

Gopi soon realised that there were other groups in the same position: the Manans were a low-caste community of drumming people whose astonishing musical skills were ignored by the Kerala establishment and unvisited by tourists. Gopi set up Blue Yonder to bring visitors to the musicians and dancers.

"If we can convince the kids to stay and learn about their own roots, not go off to Bahrain or Dubai, then we might have a chance in fighting to save the environment," says Gopi.

Back in Trivandrum's Chelai Market I find old and new India in a head-to-head confrontation: an ox-cart versus a 4x4 car. The ox-cart driver is sitting, impassively, watching the car-driver honk himself into a frenzy. "India at the crossroads," I muse. "Old and new struggling to co-exist."

And at that moment, a man dressed in traditional lungi, pushing an old bicycle, threads his way neatly past the cow-car confrontation. On his handlebars is a package of vegetables wrapped in a leaf and tied up with a length of raffia. As he passes, I hear the mobile phone tucked in his shirt pocket start to ring.

How to get there

Fly to Trivandrum

Where to stay: Colours of India (colours -of-india.co.uk) tailormake a two-week itinerary to Kerala & Tamil Nadu, with stays at Fragrant Nature, Ayurveda Mana and Friday's Place. Marari Beach resort (casinogroupkerala.com) doubles from $175 (BD66 B&B).