Day 58-60: Alleppey — IndefinitelyOOO

Kerala’s backwaters are much admired and almost mythologised. A rite of passage that is a solid MUST in everyone’s book – which is probably why two days on a houseboat costs the same as, well, I would have said a small boat before I found out how much this cost… But it was also one of the things we’d been most looking forward to – living on a boat for days on end with only our crew for company (and as it turned out to also serve us food, near constantly).

Having ‘lived’ in Varkala for a full week it did take an extra effort to hoist the backpack onto my shoulders again but the excitement of the backwaters miraculously lightened the load.

Quite a few emails back and forth in the preceding days had flagged the fact that our original boat was in dock for some undisclosed and therefore sinking feeling reason… We were however getting a replacement boat and one which turned out to be twice as big, meaning that if we wanted we could sleep in a different room every night of our fantastic voyage. NB. The cook on board also approached every mealtime as if there were twice as many passengers if our waistlines wobbling off the boat come docking time were anything to go by.

As I may have slightly alluded to already our trip through some of southern India’s most peaceful and memory making land and water-scapes was essentially made up of two things: eating and looking. Hours on end of gazing into the greenest paddy fields you can imagine and only moving for the occasional wave to passing traffic, traffic which was a little heavier than normal due to a recent, unexpected monsoon which had left some routes unpassable.

We also docked every now and then for photo opps next to river side churches and the odd basking water buffalo… but really it was eating and looking and the odd sneaked sunset G&T from our newly christened (from Christmas) hip flasks. Not a bad way to spend the Crimbo Limbo period I was reading so much about in the UK papers ; -)

But not totally good though. Here more than anywhere else… and my goodness litter in India is not an issue you can figuratively or literally side step… here it made me feel genuinely sad and angry and ashamed I suppose at just how much damage we’re doing. Plastic bottles bobbed along beside us. Birds rested on banks along with crisp packets. It is a blight that is hard to ignore (although many do with a seeming ‘what difference will it make’ mindset). Jack and I spoke about it in ‘broken window theory’ terms when we were in Kolkata walking through playing fields that could easily have been mistaken for a rubbish dump. When things are this bad already and in areas where let’s be honest people have uncontestably more things to worry about, is where they leave their litter that far up the list? I didn’t think the two couldn’t go hand in hand and a matter of days latter a new TED talk podcast alert popped up on my phone orated by a man who has indeed combined the two issues with his charity Plastic Bank. It’s a simple enough idea of course – income for plastic - but crucially with the added assistance of helping to give people more security with bank accounts where they turn waste into currency. A nascent thing yet in India but something which has seen real results in places such as Haiti and the Philippines which also have what could be considered ‘bigger problems’.

*"An outstanding highlight of our trip"*

Our brief stop in the mangroves of Poovar Island had whetted the appetite for Kerala’s incredible beauty and it was real excitement that we boarded a houseboat for a few days of sedately exploring the region’s famed backwaters. We were not disappointed. Wide-hulled and bamboo-roofed, we were the only guests on the large boat we shared with three crew; a silent and ancient skipper, stick-thin and seemingly made of teak, his cheerful first mate and the irrepressible cook, out of whose galley came course after course of fresh food, more than we could possibly eat, though we made our best effort.

The boat chugs through the waterways at little more than walking pace, the surface of the wide river seemingly untroubled by much more than the other occasional houseboat (its a rightly popular attraction) and locals in paddle canoes. The water reflects the blue of a cloudless sky and the striking green of the plantlife on the banks, dense jungly swamps making way for lines of palms and endless paddy fields. As everywhere in Kerala, it is bursting with life; kingfishers catch the eye in brilliant blue and orange, standing out against the million shades of green. We see snakes in the water and frogs, burping non-stop near the banks. Slow, chunky water buffalo submerge to stay cool, just their ears and snouts protruding. Like the water, the air teems with life and in the evenings we’re savaged by insects. The mosquitoes round here carry knives.

We spend hours on the observation platform watching the mangroves crawl by and local life with it. Two older ladies steering their canoe to the chemists, which has a convenient riverside counter to service the water-bourne. A mid-stream economy of fishermen and flower-sellers haggling from the tiller. Huge tractors and earthmovers being transported on lashed-together barges lying perilously low in the water. There’s plenty to occupy the eye and the bright light dazzles and shines off the water, highlighting the extraordinary Technicolor view.

We only take one brief excursion off the boat. The dense foliage on either bank is broken every mile or so by fine Catholic churches and convents incongruously styled in Mediterranean or Latin American architecture, the pristine white plaster accented in bright blues, pinks and yellows. We stop to tour St. Mary’s Basilica, which dates from the 6th century. One of the 12 Apostles, Thomas, brought Christianity to India - he’s buried in Chennai - and it remains the majority religion in large parts of the coastal south. Then we carefully board a canoe to take us through the smaller waterways, so choked with water plants and flowers (and yes, plastic waste) that jokes about getting out and pushing quickly turn into Helen and I both grabbing oars and poles to try to drive a path through the soupy water. It’s sweaty and tiring but ridiculous and good fun.

During our time on the boat, we don’t really do anything but feel like we have experienced a lot. An outstanding highlight of our trip so far - Kerala is an incredible place.