The Blog of Gord

The plan for Saturday was to go straight from the train station to Alleppey, where I was going for an overnight houseboat trip, and save the Cochin sight-seeing for Sunday.

My driver for the weekend, Anish, told me we had to go about 60 km south, and that it would take about two hours to get there normally, but less at this time of day.  Saturday morning at 6:30am in Ernakulam, there isn’t much traffic yet, so we got out of town easily.

We stopped at a roadside restaurant outside the city, where I had my usual breakfast: masala dosa, sambar, and coconut/chili chutney, with black coffee and, for variety, a bottle of fizzy sour lime juice.  The bill came to about $1.  I’d ordered more stuff, but the waiter, a young boy, came back every couple of minutes with more bad news.  “I’m sorry sir, there is no idli today.”  “I’m sorry sir, there is no vada today.”  “I’m sorry sir, there is no fruit juice today.”  That was for the best, because the dosa was huge!

 
We got to Alleppey around 8:30, too early to checkin at the houseboat, which was expecting me at noon.  Anish suggested going to the beach for a while.  That was a great idea: Alleppey is a resort destination, and the beach was fantastic, several kilometers of clean sand along the Arabian Sea.  Even though it was early, the day was already quite warm, not surprising considering that it’s only 9 degrees north of the equator, roughly level with the northern tip of Sri Lanka.  At this time of year, the nightly lows are about 25 C, the highs in the mid-30’s, and the Arabian Sea is very warm.

 
I rolled up my pant legs and went for a long walk through the surf, then relaxed on a rock under the shade of a coconut tree for a while, watching small fishing boats slowly pass on the water.  A friendly dog curled up on a nearby rock, and an old fellow out for his morning walk stopped by to chat for a while.  The conversation always follows the same pattern…  “Your good name, sir?”  “Which country?”  “Your family is where?”  “How do you like India?”  The beach wasn’t busy at this time of day, a few walkers, a few families out to enjoy it before it gets too hot, and the beach cleaning crews.

 
Back at the car, Anish had called the houseboat to see if they were ready yet, so I got there about 10am.  There wasn’t a dock, just houseboats tied up beside each other at the shore, one after another, hundreds of them.  They were also tied up several deep: to get to my houseboat, I had to walk through half a dozen others.

The houseboat was intended for two people but I was going to have it to myself: just me, the cook, and the skipper.  The busy season is December-January, so now the boats are idle a lot of the time.  At the boat, they showed me my room, which had it’s own bathroom, gave me a coconut with the top hacked off and a straw pushed into it, and told me we’d leave when we could.  Before a boat can leave, all the boats behind it have to be untied and move out of the way.

We were moving by about 11:30… cue the theme to Gilligan’s Island… slowly meandering down the river to Vembanad Lake.  The lake is India’s longest: it runs all the way back to Kochi, a six hour ride at 10 km/h.  We weren’t going that far, though.

After some time on the lake, we turned off into some narrow canals, the backwaters this area is famous for.  It’s called “India’s Venice” and also “The Hundred Thousand Islands”.  The shore is lined with huts and small houses, churches, schools, and businesses.  In behind are rice fields, and everything moves by boat: cement, food, animals, people, whatever.  Everyone has a canoe, some motorized, and there are regular water buses.

Plenty of hammer and sickle flags on display.  Kerala’s government is communist.  That’s supposed to account for Kerala being the only state with 100% literacy, but also not much industry.

 
Some people fish; for lunch we stopped beside a rice field and I had a flat fish called “Black Spot” that comes from the river.  “Black Spot” doesn’t sound very appetizing, but that’s the English translation of the Malayalam name for it.  Lots of bones, not much flesh, but very tasty.

After lunch, we meandered away again, up and down canals, while I sat in my deck chair on the roof, getting a sunburn on my feet.  A lazy cruise in a houseboat for two on Valentines Day… sounds very romantic except my girlfriend is back shoveling snow in Canada.  Bummer.

 

At 5pm we pulled over to the shore, tied the boat to a coconut tree for the night, and relaxed.  I went for a short walk along the shore: it was short because you can’t walk very far without running into a canal.  I was a little uncomfortable, because I felt like I was walking through people’s front yards, which I was: past their tethered goats, women doing their laundry in the canal, kids playing etc.  I guess they’re used to it, because It’s a popular spot for boats to spend the night.  By dark (sun goes down a little after 6pm), there were quite a few moored there.

  

Anyway, as I walked along, every couple of minutes I had another conversation.  “Your good name, sir?”  “Which country?”  “Your family is where?”  “How do you like India?”  That is, until I passed a houseboat full of young guys, including one entertainingly drunk fellow named Ranjit who insisted on having a deep and incoherent conversation with me about cultural differences between east and west, Christians and Hindus, somehow all related to the Himalayas.  We sat on his boat for a while as he tugged on a large bottle of Kingfisher (I didn’t join him) and he expounded on his topic.  Eventually the driver of their boat decided to move the boat: I think he realized this group was going to disturb everyone else, and he was right: later their boat was anchored way out on the lake, and I could hear the sounds of singing long into the night.  Before he could pull away, though, everyone got out their camera phones so they could get their picture with me, arms around each other’s shoulders (Ranjit’s were very hairy).  After their hangovers wore off the next day, I’ll bet they were wondering who the heck that sunburned guy was in their mobiles!

While I was out socializing, the cook was busy preparing another feast for me:

 

After dinner, I sat on the upper deck and watched a few fireworks displays out across the lake, and listened to the Malayalam music coming from some of the distant boats.  It was a mild evening; once the sun went down, it quickly cooled off to about 25 C.  There were mosquitos out, as I discovered when I went downstairs and saw them all gathered around a light shining on a picture of Jesus.  They were being picked off one by one by a gecko that was hiding behind Jesus.  The mosquitos didn’t seem to be biting, fortunately for me since I didn’t bother getting malaria tablets for this trip.  It’s the dry season; who knew I’d be vacationing in a wetland?

About 10pm, thoroughly relaxed, I went to bed for a great night’s sleep which lasted until 5am when the morning chants and music started from a temple/church/mosque somewhere across the lake.  Once the sun was up, I went out to the deck and tried to get a picture of one of fishing birds (a kingfisher, maybe?) that were going after the jumping fish, and watched the water buses going from stop to stop (the bus barely stops– people jump on and off while it’s moving).  I had a cup of tea while the cook prepared a western-style breakfast: omelette, ten (!) slices of toast with pineapple jam, fresh pineapple slices, and coffee.

 

While I was eating, we pulled away and got back on the river, on our way back to Alleppey.  Everyone was out along the river, brushing their teeth, bathing, washing clothes (the air was full of the sound of wet clothes slapping on rocks), washing the breakfast dishes…

We got back to Alleppey around 9:30am, I said goodbye to the cook and the skipper, and walked back through the string of houseboats to meet my driver, Anish, again.  He’d spent the last 24 hours waiting in the car.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.