Travelling with kids: Learning to take the good with the bad while on holiday

We were looking forward to three idyllic days in Goa, and then our son fell sick on the flight from Abu Dhabi. It began with an ominous tickle at the back of his throat, and by the time we had landed at Dabolim Airport, he had a full-blown fever and cough.

Calvin huddled miserably in the back of the cab on the hour-long journey to the lovely Airbnb flat we had booked, in the sleepy fishing village of Reis Magos. And he was completely uninterested in the beautiful scenery flashing by: placid rivers, emerald paddy fields, glistening herds of black buffalo, the occasional bright blue streak of a diving kingfisher and the mineral-rich, soft red soil.

The climate wasn’t helping either. We visited during the school break in March, one of the hottest months of the year, when humidity was at an oppressive 85 per cent. The air was like a warm, damp cloth against our skin, and our clothes were drenched with sweat. It didn’t take long for Calvin to be at his irascible best.

“It feels,” he said sourly, popping yet another Strepsil, “like I’m wading through custard. Good times.”

Once at the flat, our 15-year-old promptly switched on all the air-conditioners, then looked puzzled when, 20 minutes later, the rooms were still hot.

But Goa is the kind of place where the outside always finds a way to creep in. Growing up in Muscat, every year during the summer holidays my dad took us to his ancestral home in Caranzalem. Coming from the insulated, sanitised confines of the Omani capital, my sister and I were always overwhelmed by how much that creaky old house let in: the stifling heat, the pounding rain and all manner of insects, reptiles and mammals – spiders as big as saucers, ferocious armies of ants, fat lizards, field snakes, lots of fluttering bats and the occasional mangy stray dog or cat. Sometimes we even had coconuts thudding heavily onto the roof, sending terracotta tiles clattering to the ground. My dad was constantly making jokes about how we’d probably all die in our beds, killed in our prime by enormous attacking coconuts.

But the food always cheered us up, as it did Calvin. Watching him tuck into fried fish slathered in reachado, a hot chilli and garlic paste, and spooning up large amounts of prawn curry, brought back happy memories of my childhood sojourns. There always was crab on the table, of course, plus fragrant mounds of brown rice, fiery prawn pickle, stuffed squid, and lightly cooked vegetables such as okra and long beans. Each meal ended with fresh lemonade and fruit from the trees in the orchard behind the house: sapota, banana, papaya and mango.

Our three-day March break ended all too quickly, and I would like to believe that even Calvin was a bit sad when it was time to go. On the next visit, I plan to show him around my dad’s family home. But the fact that there isn’t a single air-conditioner just might be a deal-breaker.