Day 13
After convincing the hotel to whip us up a quick breakfast, we left Munnar at 7:00 and drove through to Alleppey to find our houseboat. We arrived around 12:00 and met our crew, Captain Beju Kumar and cook Sree Kumar. Apparently there was a third guy on our boat we never met... The houseboat was a traditional "kettuvallam", decorated with coconut coir. They are truly original and quite beautiful boats. Ours had two bedrooms, one of which was ours, with an en suite bathroom. We were the only guests on the boat.
We set off almost immediately through the backwaters of Kerala, and Werner and I chilled in comfy chairs, watching the world go by at a really relaxed pace. We saw many rural houses on the sides of the rivers, most of which were actually very nice, usually painted in bright colours and many with red tiled roofs. We witnessed all the daily activities of the local people, women washing clothes in the river, chatting, men bathing, children playing... Wherever we went, people waved at us, whether they were visitors on other houseboats, or locals on dry land or using boats to get around.
We asked if it was possible to try Toddy, the local brew made from coconut palms. Our crew pulled over at a Toddy bar and took us inside with them to sample the offering. We tried the first brew, which is light and refreshing, and a more fermented brew, which tastes stronger and has a much higher alcohol content. Both were quite nice, with a kind of yeasty taste, but we decided on a litre of the sweeter first brew, Rs125, which we enjoyed while cruising the backwaters.
We stopped the boat at a spot for lunch, and were treated to an incredible spread of vegetable sambhar, green beans, cabbage and lentils, rice, pickle, the puffiest poppadoms I have ever had, and the highlight, fish curry. The fish curry was made of karrimeen, a local fish, served whole, and was almost as spicy as the night before, but really delicious. They also threw in a bottle of cold water. Everything was yummy and we couldn't finish the huge amount that was provided. While we ate, we enjoyed the sounds of birds, the occasinal cow mooing, and a lady beating the living daylights out of her washing. After lunch, we had a bit of a nap on the comfy side cushions, while our crew went out to buy beer for us, Rs150 per bottle of Kingfisher, we found out later they were the large 650ml Kingfishers.
We set off again and cruised at a slow pace for quite some time. We discovered that in true Indian style, the boats actually have hooters, but fortunately they don't use them too often! We reached a point which was apparently the largest lake in Kerala, and shortly thereafter stopped the boat again. This time to go prawn shopping. We hopped off after Beju and he took us to a small shack, where they had various sea foods in cooler boxes with ice. They showed me some large freshwater prawns with long blue pincers, and I couldn't resist. I managed to convince them to give me 2 king prawns for Rs500. These went to the back kitchen with Sree.
After this, the sun started setting and we made our way to our boat's mooring point, on the side of a smaller canal. We got them impression it may have been Beju's home... We stopped the for the night, and the two of us sat on the front of the boat, with our feet dangling over the edge, watching the magnificent colours in the sky as the sun set behind palm trees. We watched large bats fly overhead and fought off mosquitoes. I must say it was pretty magical!
Dinner consisted of the two prawns, beautifully cooked with a lot of spice, plus chicken curry, daal, vegetables, chapatti and rice, with chopped fresh pineapple for dessert. While we were eating, Sree kept popping out to see how we were doing, his English was minimal but he had a very sweet manner abut him! We agreed to give him the last of the large beers, and he pulled down some shutters on the boat before saying goodnight.
This has definitely been the most relaxing part of our whole India trip and I am so glad we came. I really think it is something that every Indian family should experience at some point, and it's also highly recommended to foreign visitors!
- Nix
For anyone interested in this experience, here are the details:
Lovedale houseboats
Finishing point road, thathampally, alapphuzha
lovedalehb@yahoo.com
09496886118
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