From Idea to Itinerary: Kerala Backwaters with Arun Srinivas, Purser on RV Kochi Pandaw

Welcome to Teak Antails, your podcast for River Cruising in Southeast Asia. From local culture to life on board, we explore the people, places, and stories that define their Asian. Today, we are joined by Arun, one of the incredible persons who runs the day-to-day operations on board the RV Cochipandah, failing the new route in the Kerala backwaters. Arun, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very happy to join you. Before I get into all of the information and questions that go into who you are and how you contribute to building this route, I have to ask, what is the travel item you cannot go without? What are you bringing along with you when you're traveling yourself for fun? It's obviously my foot and my charger always with me because it's obviously the thing that it's my camera, it's my notebook, it's my everything and also it's my link back to my home when I'm on board, where I'm in a get-by-time, I call back my home and speak to my wife or my family. So, always my phone clear. You're not booked too. Do you do a lot of journal? No, actually all two do. I write down my two daily operations and anything important which I have to do it for the next day or for the evening time. So I just note it down. Sometimes it may be expenses, spending a lot of money on pencil, that expenses to be not looked down also. Also, yeah, we have the vouchers. So if I'm busy, I'm not on my desk, then I just type it down on my notebook, immediately, so that I don't forget it. That makes sense, I'm sure there's a lot of to-do list things that come up, taking care of both of the guests and the crew on board. Yeah, right. Well, let's get into it. Tell me a little bit about where you're from, where did you go to school, what's your background, how do you get to Pando, all of that stuff? So I'm originally from Kochi, Kerala, but I have completed my hotel management in B.C. from Hyderabad, against South of India, but up north from Kerala. So, yeah, when my father was working there in my factory, so we had shifted from Kochi to Hyderabad there, and spent my school and college time there after that we spent my father's help, retired from there, and we shifted to Kochi. So with the Pando, actually, it's from one of my friends, he referred me, and actually, when this Kochi Pando was not planned, they had a plan to bring the Kata, Arvikata to Kochi in Kerala. So, Mr. Stewart and my friend Sam has come over to Kerala, and that's how I meet Stewart there, and also Sam came back and we went for reeking, we were checking the rich heights, and that's how I came to my boat Pando, and then later on, I joined Pando from Brahmaputra and then continued to work with Pando with Arvikata, that's how it happened. Okay, do you ever get to work with Sam on board or were you on different shows? No, we did work eventually when I was joined in Brahmaputra, Arvik in the, he was there for one week with me, and he was actually a trainer for me also. So he's looking after the destination management, now, TMC. That's really sweet that you ought to be trained by your friend that brought you into the company. Yeah, right. Well, tell me what it was like bringing a cruise product to the place where you grew up. I mean, hearing your story, you really were always kind of around Kerala. Yeah, it was incredibly special for me when I came to know that something like Pando and Riva Chris is the planning for Perala. Actually, we have in Kerala already, we have a 2000 plus houseboats, but they are only doing the day trips, not something like Arvikotchi Pando is currently doing in the back quarters. It's a bit challenging, yes, but it was exciting also when people come to know that we are doing seven day cruising and they go in a shock and they're like really, how are you doing it? And that's always a question mark for them. So when I see that face that they have this question mark, I feel very proud about working with these Pando for the first time in Kocchi, and something you are doing, which is not never done by any other Chris or houseboats in Kocchi. It's quite a big endeavor to make this all possible. What were kind of the different phases that you went about to setting up the cruise route? Where do you even start? It should obviously have to be made, but when it comes to bringing the itinerary together, what were the steps around that? So my foundation for the itinerary and everything came up when I started with Ramuputra. So I came to know how the itineris have been planned and also Mrs. Store helped me a lot in that. So Mrs. Store and we also did the raking for almost two or three weeks. We went around the bridges also. We went to the iron ports and we go around the backwaters to check the draft, to check the route channels. We have conducted meetings with the IWAI of Kerala. So there are so many things coming together and we worked as a team and we made it successful. That's how it was. And itinerary here. We had a couple of discussions on it. We had our local guide, Jay Krishna also with us and we had a couple of meetings and finally we made one itinerary with seven days such as Phulirani. What I think is really special about the route and the itinerary that you've worked to make is it has quite a bit of interesting components both on the ship and off of the ship. So it's all about the culture also we want to give them the cultural feel of Kerala. Like we do the Katakali dance drama of the Kerala which is very famous and we wanted to give that experience on board. Actually this Katakali dance drama takes around two, three hours actually if you want to finish the free show. So we shrink it to 45, 15 minutes and we kept the interesting part into it and just performed that part for the guest. That's super cool that you found a way to take the local culture and local experience and make it fit for the the Pandoff sailing. Tell me a little bit about the guest experience. What are some of the feedback you're hearing from travelers as you've been on board for the past three, four months now? First I actually love the they just love the backwarders. They are not worried about any itinerary or where you want to go out. They just love many of our guests. They're just love sitting on the deck up a deck open deck. I'm just love watching the reporters, watching birds, a lot of bird lives and stuff. As a few of guests gave me a good feedback. I remember one of the guests saying that if we want to start coming to India you start from Kerala. It's one of the best places to start your India tool from. That was the best comment I ever came across. I think that's really been interesting for me too. I mean I support the team with building award entries. I think one of the most unique factors is that the team have really built this seven-night itinerary in an area that was really just known for house goats and day trips that you've been able to create this super special experience that spans a bit of a longer duration. But something you wish maybe travelers knew more about Kerala and the backwaters. Backwarkers experience we are giving all together everything is included. It's nothing to be sure or added to the backwaters. If we would have across the bridge also given them the kocchi kocchi sitting to and kocchi here we can have talk to the ship to the kocchi area. But also I would like just to experience my point of view will be the cultural temples, cultural festivals in the temples, the elephants, decorated elephants will be there a lot of like eight to ten elephants will be there in one festival and a lot of crumb beads you have dance programs going around all the cultural things. So that would be a great idea I think but a bit of fresh not every guest would like but yeah it's the base of Kerala the festivals in temples. Do you have a favorite stretch of the cruise route of the backwaters? My favorite place would be always a Monroe lighthouse where we anchor our ship and take on the shikara small boats go to the Monroe lighthouse sailing for around one hour in the shikara small boats. Actually we are not really excited to see the Monroe lighthouse but the bird life around this area and the landscaping around this area which keeps our guests very exciting and also we love to see new new birds. Sometimes we spot snakes also on one of our routes that is one of the things which I will look forward in our itinerary and guess love that part as well and the idea of going in a shikara small boat was our mr. Stewart was the person who gave this idea of taking the shikara and going on that really made a difference actually. Yeah from the photos I mean it looks absolutely beautiful with the backwaters some sure hiding the extra thrill of trying to see different birds. I can't imagine seeing a snake I don't know if that would be for me but it's a very fun day being able to be immersed in the wildlife. Sorry this is one quick point to look around about Monroe lighthouse to it through there the fields of the water lily when they open the water lily. It's a huge contrast between the peaks of the water lily and we agree before the white house which I'll be sharing with you when the lights are planted and when the fields are actually fired have these leaves or pitch or postcard where you plug the into your water lilies through the canal running through the air. with green and white steel to get well. So I just put it up that into that lovely erudite. Do people make much comment about visiting the temple with the female priest? Because that I think is quite interesting as well. Female priest, actually the female priest is the old lady. She cannot meet her every time when we go. She is around 90 plus, now 92 years old I guess. So yeah, not every time we make her. But yeah, temple is very interesting it's around 10,000 idols of snakes. Every day there will be what you call it's called Anathana in a Malayalam. And that's putting that when the baby turns one years old his father feeds the first rice to the baby in the temple. That's when ritual which happens there. It's a very famous also. And the guest love it. Then they'll see about it. It's always interesting to hear the different ceremonies of other cultures. I have never heard of that. So haven't been involved in a set-up of operations, filling the itinerary, you know, being on board supporting all the salings. Is there a moment that you look back on where you feel like the most proud? See yeah, what she fanned was a port to start the cruise with the guest on board. Frankly speaking, I was with nervous that time. And but when guest came on board and they were all smiling, they're loving the backwaters, everything. Then they give me that common composting and I was like, yeah, this is working out and everything went very smoothly. But cruise was very very good. The guest felt very, very happy. And then later on, then it's like as much as every ship. I'm sure you get to know everyone pretty well with only 10 cabins on board. Yeah. Right. If you would go back to the beginning, what advice would you tell yourself before starting all this over again? I will just say that keep patience, always keep patience and let the things happen by itself. Just coordinate things and plan accordingly and step by step. Get the success anyhow. Our coordination is a great segue because my last question for you, shifting a little bit from the itinerary is just talking about your day to day life as a person. Tell me a little bit about a general day of running operations. What does it look like between coordinating the crew, making sure everything goes okay on the excursions. Yeah. So every day we start with the operational checks. I check every department, each department's and point to our guest and take the bags, I will see if we on cruise and coordinating it the crew if we guess need any special requirements or anything. They're not at the airport or any house tipping if you're something wrong with the housekeeping department. I go partner with them and tell them what to return. Yeah. Usually everything is business always on board and offshore as well. So we have a team which will offshore with the guide. There will be one of our sailors and it's well trained so he knows everything about what to do when they're offshore with the guest and yeah it gives me you know that support when we have an experience guide with us always yeah right. So this is how every typical day for me looks like. Very cool. That's everything that I prepared to ask you. I don't know if Stewart there's anything else you think would be worth sharing or a room if you want to hit on anything else but that's all that I was going to cover. Just a little bit about the actual all of the furniture which is locally sourced that keeps them angry. It's all traditional red iron furniture which is quite uniquely heritage and all of that stuff. So I quality meal and bat heat with sauce, localing, mills, localing and carpeting that's all done by local carpet and aboard the vessel. So there's ice standing for it. I have a little small chain on traditional indoor style bathrooms and layout. As a uniqueness of the cross-use handle has been built to very very specific locations for the operations of inside back orders which the honestly resonates with the history of the retail little water plates in the company or the owner where there was seven different designs of vessels to operate and get them started living in famous peak hours, the day class, the extra shallow drafts, which is a project and we quickly built with a very low aircraft which needs to support one of the biggest hurdles of operation the running day. That's very cool that the team really put that much emphasis in trying to prioritize local craftsmanship not just for the economy but just the sustainability aspect of it not having to bring people into and struck the ship but really trying to source everything in the region. Excellent you're putting about everything into operation where we built ships. As you know I can now handle all of the institutional fast and cheap stuff that happened to the government that allows up in the border of the garden all door by storm that vessel is built in there that's the same theme where it's theme of that box keeping it down which goes back to the value of about something so far than what the whole thing is right for what he should do is go into the experience of how to spend or stop it and keep your watch and start building up. That's very interesting. Good feature. Great work, we're very happy to answer the other guys' go. Thanks for your time, Arun. It was great to meet you and have a new feature. Thank you. Thank you very much.