Kerala’s backwater’s have been on both our lists for some time and we planned to make the 127km North (Thanmirmukkam) to South (Kollam) by rice barge to move us further South on our journey. It got off to dodgy start as we waited on a remote, decaying and dusty concrete pier where “we saw no ships”. Finally on the distant horizon our home for the next two days appeared – a coir covered converted rice barge, the blue tarpaulin covering part of the roof, proved that this was going to be as authentic and rustic an experience as we had hoped. Our rice barge has two bedrooms and two attached bathrooms, much to Gill’s delight. There are three crew - a driver, an engineer and a cook (Jose, Mannur and Rajeevan). It was so exciting to set off across Lake Verbandum and its floating islands of water hyacinths. The backwaters are a patchwork of fresh water inland lagoons and large freshwater lakes running parallel to the sea, coconut palms everywhere, rice paddies, small villages on the sand strips, children waving and asking for “one pen please”, it felt like yet another Royal progress. To move on, we often had to pause for the fishermen to pull up their nets and duck farmers to gather their huge flocks of ducks back off the water and into their pens for the night. As we moved south to the salt water channels, we sailed through miles of Chinese shrimp fishing nets on which we spotted cranes, cormorants and fabulous white headed fish eagles. Despite this being peak season and the horror stories you hear of boat jams, we saw hardly any other boats during the two days – this we understand is because we chose a north south journey, rather than the more traditional Alleppey – Alleppey one day round trip. We had the backwaters to ourselves. But as usual nothing is ever straightforward – there is point on the journey which is shallow and salt water meets fresh. This is only passable at certain times due to tides – one ship with a deeper draft had been waiting six months to go through whilst dredging slowly took its course – this is India don’t forget. But luckily for us and for some unknown reason, we only had to over-night at this spot for 15 hours – and it’s amazing how relaxed we have both become. We have both cast off our watches and our shoes. Dinner at this stopover necessitated a trip with the chef to the local village to buy four huge prawns – each the size of a small lobster. Having seen the source (a shack containing an antique chest fridge), Gill was amazed at what she was about to eat. We have spent the days taking in the tropical splendour, no reading or listening to music – just lazing languidly on the front deck watching as we passed the world by. All of the local men wear lunghis which they are deft at arranging – Anthony took lessons from Jose the driver and has consequently spent an inelegant 2 days in boats, villages and canoes displaying his wares to the world. Whilst an amusing sight to the locals, it was not a pretty one. It has spent more time dragging in the mud and water than covering his modesty! The food has been amazing, Gill has eaten all sorts despite it being produced from a kitchen at the back of the boat that perhaps we really don’t want to see. The feasts at each mealtime arrive with great pomp and pride and include eight or nine Keralan dishes, snake beans, lake fish, lots of coconut, popadoms and puras, fat Keralan rice, dahl, banana in curd and a variety of other vegetables, and of course that famous Keralan delicacy the shrimp. Today’s lunch was served on a enormous banana leaf, and we are both proud to say we managed to eat it all in the traditional way with our fingers – or in Ant’s case up to his elbow – right hand only of course! Today’s shrimp were bought from fisherman who came alongside – four men and a baby with a bag of shrimp! We couldn’t communicate with them but we both ended up crawling down the side of our boat for what we thought was a short five minute canoe ride. There was much fear on Gill’s face which had abated somewhat after an hour on said canoe – they had to keep us occupied whilst lunch was cooked perhaps. It soon became apparent that the small canoe, as well as fishing was used to transport coal or charcoal as evidenced by the black marks all over our clothes. At one point we had to crouch down low in the boat to get under a low concrete bridge, the boatman thought this so funny he made us go through it again… We both had a go at paddling and in summary provided yet again another hour’s entertainment for the local villagers. Finally getting back to the boat, predictably Ant decided to go for a swim, so removing his lunghi with some panache jumped into the lake a swam around for 20 minutes, almost being carried off by the strong current. Crawling back on to the boat was not elegant! Lots of coir rope making villages line these backwaters. We pulled over at one which was so un-commercial – and we are sure they were not expecting two “trannies off a boat” – let me explain. Ant was clad in his lunghi which looked almost sari like – Gill was in shorts, to the naked eye we looked like a couple of cross dressers. Left to our own devices, we wandered off further into the village. We stumbled into a family compound as they were preparing a meal over the open wood fire. We were forced to sit on elegantly carved brown plastic chairs as yet again we were a source of amusement. But we were made so welcome being offered chai and freshly cut fruit – again, we hope no offence was taken at our refusal! We were then dragged into the front room of a “house” by a sadhu looking character where we were proudly shown the village altar, complete with marigolds, jasmine and incense sticks. Frankly they would have been better off spending their money on Mr Muscle but I suppose we all worship at different temples!
You will remember the Fort Cochin alcohol expedition and all the effort we put in to finding wine – you can imagine our dismay when we got on board and casually asked for a corkscrew only to find that there wasn’t one! However this was soon solved by an emergency errand by Head Office – one was delivered to a quayside where one was collected four or five hours later, and we are pleased to report that the wine was actually drinkable.
We are writing this on our final evening in the dark moored up along the bank, the cicada’s chirping away, the stars twinkling above and we have no idea where we are and haven’t had for two days. Earlier as we ate, the local Christian, Hindu and Muslim temples were competing to attract attention by playing temple music at full volume. Thankfully this has now receded and we are peace with the world, except for a barking dog that sounds for all the world like an indignant Dylan who has been left behind. The Ashram awaits…….
You will remember the Fort Cochin alcohol expedition and all the effort we put in to finding wine – you can imagine our dismay when we got on board and casually asked for a corkscrew only to find that there wasn’t one! However this was soon solved by an emergency errand by Head Office – one was delivered to a quayside where one was collected four or five hours later, and we are pleased to report that the wine was actually drinkable.
We are writing this on our final evening in the dark moored up along the bank, the cicada’s chirping away, the stars twinkling above and we have no idea where we are and haven’t had for two days. Earlier as we ate, the local Christian, Hindu and Muslim temples were competing to attract attention by playing temple music at full volume. Thankfully this has now receded and we are peace with the world, except for a barking dog that sounds for all the world like an indignant Dylan who has been left behind. The Ashram awaits…….
