Greetings from Bali & Happy Halloween!

I’m back in Bali after an epic Nepal and India trip. I trust you guys are in the Halloween mood — yes the scary weekend is already upon us! Here in Bali they’re embracing it Bali style. Even the staff in my favourite coffee shop (where I'm writing this) are in fancy dress. It reminded me that back at AW HQ, Rodrigo and the UK team will also be dressing up today, I suspect much more dramatically!. Halloween really has gone global.

Last week I was telling you about mangoes, milkshakes and all-night raves in Gujarat. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

At least Bali is peaceful. The noise of India had been driving me to distraction. Although, when we arrived in Alleppey in Kerala, I thought there must have been some mistake. Here was peace and quiet. Cars weren’t honking. No blaring festival music. Quiet, thoughtful people and the tranquil backdrop of those dreamy backwaters Kerala is famous for.

It’s also rather good at furnishing the world’s doorsteps. That coconut mat with Welcome Home written on it could very well have started life here. Dozens of factories around Alleppey turn coconut fibre into millions of doormats. We had come to find out more.

A strange coincidence at the petrol pumps

We’d arranged to visit a factory whose products we liked at the Delhi trade fair, with the intention of exploring a bit further while we were there.

Our first bit of exploring happened before we even reached the hotel.

On the two-hour drive from Kochi airport, along a half-built toll road already looking ready for repairs, we stopped at a petrol station to use the facilities. Mr Chatterjee wandered off for a quick smoke.

A gentleman filling up his car spotted him, wound down his window and waved. “Hello, sir! I know you. Do you remember me?”

Now, Mr Chatterjee is quite a recognisable figure at the Delhi fair. Tall stature, distinctive hairstyle. You don’t easily lose him in a crowd. The gentleman turned out to be Mr Shali, sales manager for a coir mat factory coincidentally located just minutes from our hotel. And just like that, we had our second factory visit lined up. Some people use business networking platforms. We use petrol station toilets.

We got to know Mr Shali quite well, quite quickly. Although the toddy may have helped. More on that shortly.

Coconuts, contraptions and a very quiet boss

The factories were impressive. This is a long-established industry, certainly, but one that is adapting to the times.

Mr Shali took us around a whole compound of buildings developed over generations. In one stood huge old looms, originally built in the 1940s and still working away. In another, high-tech rubber-moulding machines made the backings. Elsewhere, screen-printing and coloured cotton flock gave the mats their finishing touches.

Then there was the rope shed.

Imagine a building as long as a cricket pitch, with rails running through it and coconut ropes stretching almost its entire length. Heath Robinson contraptions twisted and wound the fibres, before two men set off down the track with a trolley in a dramatic running finish. The completed rope was wound onto enormous spools.

I couldn’t have explained the machinery, but I could happily have watched it all afternoon.

The whole place was a maze of activity. Around 300 people work there, and the conditions looked excellent. Everyone we met seemed friendly and cheerful.

During the tour, I noticed a young man quietly watching us from a distance.

Chatterjee, showing off just a little, recruited him to take photographs of us with Mr Shali. Photos taken, he waved him away. Later, in another shed, as we inspected some impressive hydraulic presses used for embossing mats, the young man was there again. Quietly observing, almost blending into the shadows.

I sidled over.

“You’re the boss, right?”

He smiled and nodded, with a thoroughly amused glint in his eye.

This was Hari, the boss’s son and the third generation of the family business.

When Chatterjee discovered he’d been giving instructions to the next generation of management, he actually blushed. Hari seemed to have enjoyed the whole thing enormously.

And then somebody mentioned toddy…

After the tour, the showroom and the business discussions, Mr Shali and Hari asked if there was anything local we’d like to see. Chatterjee wanted to visit the beach. Kerala is famous for its backwaters, but it also has long sandy beaches, and we were curious to see how they compared with Goa.

I had another little cultural excursion in mind. Unlike Gujarat, Kerala isn’t a dry state. But around where we were staying, bars were thin on the ground. I remembered reading about the local toddy shops, where they serve kallu — palm toddy. Could we perhaps stop at one on the way?

Which is how we found ourselves in a muddy car park, behind which stood a cluster of basic little huts. Simple tables. Battered plastic chairs. We sat down wondering quite what I’d talked us into.

An older gentleman with plenty of tattoos and considerably fewer teeth arrived carrying some glasses of questionable sparkle and an earthenware jug of cloudy white liquid.

Mr Shali began pouring. Even Chatterjee looked doubtful. “I’m not drinking this.”

The flies, meanwhile, were showing considerably more enthusiasm.

Mr Shali, who doesn’t drink himself and is vegetarian, assured us this was all perfectly normal. The toddy, he explained, comes from the sap of coconut palms — not the coconut water inside the nuts. It’s collected from the trees and naturally ferments, so the fresh morning sap has become something rather more interesting by the afternoon.

We tried it. Actually… not bad. A little like coconut lemonade, with a gentle fizz on the tongue.

Our host returned with plates of cassava mash and prawn curry. More flies arrived to inspect the lunch.

We finished our drinks with a renewed enthusiasm for seeing the beach.

A slightly squiffy seaside visit

The beach was lovely. Long stretches of sand, wonderfully uncommercialised, and not a sunlounger in sight. Nothing like the Goa beach scene we’d been imagining.

Mr Shali clearly thought that was a very good thing.

A little squiffy, we took selfies on the sand with our new friends. From a chance encounter at a petrol station to coconut-rope races, an undercover boss and a jug of something cloudy in a hut. Quite a day’s work in the doormat business.

And I’m pleased to report there were no ill effects from the toddy. The only thing damaged was Chatterjee’s dignity after his brief career as Hari’s line manager.

So there’s our little scary story for Halloween. Back home, I hope the only spirits giving you trouble are the ones flying off your shelves. With Christmas creeping closer too, take a look at the new arrivals and deals below.

Have a truly haunting weekend.

Take care,
David