Growing a Beard

We arrived in Alappuzha (Allepy) from Munnar by car around 5 in the afternoon. The town is the largest entry gate to the famous Keralan backwaters and most tourists usually come here to jump on a houseboat or any other of the many boat trips available. I heard somewhere that some call the town “Venice of India”. There are definitely canals just like in Venice, but that’s probably the only similarity between the two cities!

The driver dropped us of next to one of the canals where the houseboats are parked and waiting to find costumers. As fast as we got of the car we were surrounded by people trying to sell us a trip on one of the hundreds of houseboats. I managed to ignore the touts trying to catch my attention and went directly to the boat owners who mostly sat in their boats and chilling. The first houseboat we saw was a double-decker with two double bedrooms, each with own bathroom. The price he offered was 4500 rupees for two nights, including all meals. This was far cheaper than what I had expected and I didn’t find any other boat for the same price while looking around. They were usually not a double decked and the price was usually 1000 rupees more for the two nights. I made the deal with the boat owner who jumped on his bike to go shopping groceries for our meals and we went to buy some beer and snacks for the trip. We left Allepy at seven on a boat full of food and drinks heading off to the lake where we would park for the night.

Sunset over the backwaters, Kerala

More info about the houseboats here: Houseboat on Wikipedia.org/

The crew consisted of an older steer man, a chef and the brother of the owner who also baked bread and helped in the kitchen. The chef cooked at least 4 different dishes for each meal, not to mention the fresh baked chapatti and rice and other side dishes. I can without a doubt admit that the food on the boat was by far the best food I had in India. Fresh coconut is used largely in the Keralan kitchen and there was no short of it in our food. Our chef also made a couple of dishes with sugar beets which tasted heavenly. We stopped by a fish monger along on of the canals the day after and got fresh fish as well as king prawns which we later barbequed for lunch. We were also served snacks and fresh fruit between the meals.

Lunch on houseboat, Kerala

There is not much to do along the canals than to relax and watch people going on with their everyday lives; bathing and washing cloths in the water, school children hoping on the boat home after classes are finished etc. We came back to Allepy early in the morning on our second morning on the boat and jumped on a taxi which took us further south to the heavenly beaches of Varkala.