 |
| Majestic Chinese fishing nets in Fort Cochin |
We chose to stay in the Ernakulam area of Cochin, a bit of a mistake we later figured out as a quick ferry ride across the bay was Fort Cochin, a gorgeous spot with beautiful buildings, cool cafes & the famous Chinese fishing nets. John saw this as a bonus – we would have to get the boat here every day to hang out, damn! A few days quickly passed just hanging out by the fishing nets, exploring the Jewish quarter, catching a Kathakali show & drinking lots of masala chai in a gorgeous café called Teapot.
Our next stop was Alleppey to the south of Cochin where we planned to explore the Keralan backwaters, an endless series of canals & waterways created to help flood all the paddy fields & to allow the rice to be transported out more easily.
 |
| Our beautiful rice boat |
After a nail biting three hours on the bus from Cochin we arrived. Alleppey was a bit of a dump but we planned to spend most of our time on a houseboat or canoe so we didn’t really care. The biggest challenge was going to be choosing a houseboat from the thousands available – this turned out to take ALL day! The choice was overwhelming and by the end of it our heads were spinning & we couldn’t even remember which boats we liked & which had the best price! We had always planned for this to be a treat so in the end after sleeping on it we headed back to the boat jetty & chose a gorgeous two bed converted rice barge boat for R6500– around £85 – for two days & one night. The grotty, cheaper ones were still around 4500 rupees so we thought the extra was money well spent! We agreed to head off the next morning at 11am.
With the rest of the day free we thought we would explore the smaller canals, after a lot of haggling we set off with a hilarious local guy for a three hour cruise for R600/ £7.50. The trip was awesome and so relaxing, we saw loads of wildlife - water snakes, humming birds, kingfishers & water buffalo but the best part was all the village life. People bathing, women washing clothes & hundreds of school children spilling out of tiny boats waving, shouting & blowing kisses!
 |
| Gorgeous boat on the backwaters |
That night we packed up ready for the houseboat & headed out to buy a few supplies from the booze shop which turned out to be quite an experience. In Scotland you might pop out to your local Tesco’s for your booze – other supermarkets are available – but in India you need to head to the Government liquor shop which sounds pretty normal but in true Indian style it was chaos. We arrived at this hole in the wall with huge metal bars to find a crazed crowd of men jostling to get to the front. From the shocked stares it was pretty obvious women never come here. Queues don’t exist in India so we knew that to have a hope of getting served we were going to have to get amongst the scrum! After a while struggling in the crowd we saw the rusty side door open up and a man gestured for us to come in, relieved we pushed our way through to the calm of the bottle store & quickly got our hands on a crate a beer!
 |
| Doing the dishes Indian style |
The next morning we were greeted at the boat with a gorgeous fresh coconut to drink & told to just relax upstairs for the morning taking in the scenery before we would be served lunch…we could get used to this! The next two days were pretty much more of the same, relaxing, eating gorgeous food, drinking cold beer & watching the world go by from the boat. Pure indulgence & worth every penny!
Once we returned to Alleppey we headed to the bus station to figure out where next, with no plan it would probably be wherever the next bus was going – turns out it was Varkalar, a cliff side village with a stunning beach four hours south. It’s a hard life but someone has to do it!
 |
| Herding ducks - hilarious to watch! |
