Alappuzha is often referred to as the Venice of the East. The Rough Guide to India will addendum this by saying that its not really Venice, and anyone hoping to find Venice will be disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised with the canals of Alappuzha, but for the more urban part, I’d peg it as more of a tropical, less wealthy Amsterdam without all the drugs and sex.
From one of the main canals in Alappuzha we boarded an old ferry with an orange hull made from what looked like, hammered metal. We waited for some time and when we finally got under way I realized that aside from a few other foreigners, the array of passengers were mostly Indian. A few school children dressed in blue uniforms clustered in parts- one group of boys seated just in front of us.
The canal opened up to a large lake and as the old Indian Hannah Glover chugged across the water we got our first view of the famous house boats. Big bulbous floats with thatch walls woven beautifully. The best of the lot had ornate thatch roofs that resembled most closely the build and design of a tortoise’s shell. They powered along, all with an open front that doubled as a cockpit and main dinning area. The early morning gave us a quick glimpse of breakfast aboard the backwater yachts. Some - most had a flat screen TV, opposite the view and on the inside wall. I was amused with the people I saw enveloped in morning programs.
Our ferry started making frequent stops and I came to think that it was more like a waterbus than a ferry. Across the lake we entered a narrow canal and in the course of about a quarter mile, we passed perhaps 4 or 5 dozen houseboats. The pass felt more like a highway along with the wide river it led into. The stops became more frequent and the number of school children at each stop started to climb.
How fantastic, I thought, it would have been to get to school by a boat and how funny I thought that these kids must be just as inured with the experience as I am enthralled. The group of boys in front of us played a game that seemed to be a more complicated version of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’. Before they got off the ferry for school I got the chance to take each of their portraits in turn.
Soon, the old Indian who was to be our guide motioned to us that the next cement piling roofed with corrugated plastic was to be our stop. After a few minutes we started walking along a very narrow canal perpendicular to the main water drag. Palms arched out over the water, bulging in towards it as their bases began to tilt, enacting a slow fall into the water. Every variety of green, shape and shade crowded the banks.
Kunjachan, our guide, led us to his house, a darkly cluttered home of three rooms. His smile all pervaded as he showed us in and pointed out his children in a photo. The youngest, a daughter of my age, is a nun living in Kenya. He seated us and with what English he had, we were laughing within moments. It was truly wonderful how he got the French group of four (who joined us for the backwater tour) laughing considering how little English they all shared.
Kunjachan’s wife soon brought out breakfast for the lot of us - a meal I had yet to come across in India: Plain white noodles over a bed of sugared coconut. I had seconds.
Soon after, Kunjachan loaded us into a long canoe and our tour of the Kerelan backwaters began. We had opted for a smaller boat to tour the backwaters, not just out of cost but also for the chance to see life along some of the smaller quieter canals were a houseboat would never be able to go. Aside from the melodic racket of birds in the expanding and flowering greenery, the only other sound that filled us was the relaxing flutter of water as Kunjachan lowered his oar into the water.
For the first quarter of the tour he kept asking us if was liked the canal we were on, as if this were his first time being a tour guide and nervous at his performance. When it was clear that we were all generally happy, he seemed reassured and we all enjoyed the sights as they slowly lulled past.
At several points we passed vast stretches of rice paddies and I noticed with curiosity that the water level of the canal was higher than the whole of the paddy, almost as if we were riding in an elevated aqueduct. Women and men bathed at the canal side, and washed clothes, swinging the wet whips high above their heads and smacking them down on smooth rock.
When the sun had stretched to its highest point and began to relax, Kunjachan turned us back towards his home. There, his wife had lunch already prepared. That morning we had watched as a man in a canoe had pulled up just outside of Kunjachan’s wife had purchased fish from the man after he had weighed an amount on an old scale placed next to the bucket of fish in his boat. They had now been fried and accompanied a regional version of Thali. A rice dish that comes with several small dishes filled with different curries and masala mixes. Our plates proved to be banana leaves.
Shortly after taking off from Goa on the motorcycle, I had decided to do away with the tourist caution that had guarded my food decisions. I had spent much of my time in Nepal and Rajasthan sick and figured any caution I had really didn’t do me any good. I now ate whatever was placed in front of me (including the tap water), regardless of the scared rumors that visitors of India carry from home, and I ate my food with my hand, just as all the other Indians who I watched in restaurants eat. There is a wonderful sensation in being able to touch one’s food as one eats it. The experience has made me wonder if it is part of the reason why hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza are so popular in the United States - all foods that we eat with our hands.
For family reading this, let this be a warning that the next time I make dinner, utensils may not be allowed.
After our meal of rice and masala with fired fish, Kunjachan offered to go buy us coconut beer. Apparently certain palm trees produce a certain coconut that naturally ferments some of the sugars in its milk and creates a naturally alcoholic mix.
The alcoholic percentage is low, but I still managed to get pretty buzzed off the stuff, even though the taste was far counter to the spirited beverages I’m accustomed to. Coconut beer has a slightly fizzy texture as if it had almost been carbonated and the taste is a bit like the smell of warm, slightly stale milk, and altogether something that might taste like a partially rotten cashew. Needless to say, I was the only one who drank much of it and what remained of my share I offered to Kunjachan, who, after some customary protestations, accepted my proffered beer and downed the rest of it like a college kid. The old man, jovial and a true expression of hospitality, is a credit to the fact that wonderful people can be found anywhere and everywhere.
From one of the main canals in Alappuzha we boarded an old ferry with an orange hull made from what looked like, hammered metal. We waited for some time and when we finally got under way I realized that aside from a few other foreigners, the array of passengers were mostly Indian. A few school children dressed in blue uniforms clustered in parts- one group of boys seated just in front of us.
The canal opened up to a large lake and as the old Indian Hannah Glover chugged across the water we got our first view of the famous house boats. Big bulbous floats with thatch walls woven beautifully. The best of the lot had ornate thatch roofs that resembled most closely the build and design of a tortoise’s shell. They powered along, all with an open front that doubled as a cockpit and main dinning area. The early morning gave us a quick glimpse of breakfast aboard the backwater yachts. Some - most had a flat screen TV, opposite the view and on the inside wall. I was amused with the people I saw enveloped in morning programs.
Our ferry started making frequent stops and I came to think that it was more like a waterbus than a ferry. Across the lake we entered a narrow canal and in the course of about a quarter mile, we passed perhaps 4 or 5 dozen houseboats. The pass felt more like a highway along with the wide river it led into. The stops became more frequent and the number of school children at each stop started to climb.
How fantastic, I thought, it would have been to get to school by a boat and how funny I thought that these kids must be just as inured with the experience as I am enthralled. The group of boys in front of us played a game that seemed to be a more complicated version of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’. Before they got off the ferry for school I got the chance to take each of their portraits in turn.
Soon, the old Indian who was to be our guide motioned to us that the next cement piling roofed with corrugated plastic was to be our stop. After a few minutes we started walking along a very narrow canal perpendicular to the main water drag. Palms arched out over the water, bulging in towards it as their bases began to tilt, enacting a slow fall into the water. Every variety of green, shape and shade crowded the banks.
Kunjachan, our guide, led us to his house, a darkly cluttered home of three rooms. His smile all pervaded as he showed us in and pointed out his children in a photo. The youngest, a daughter of my age, is a nun living in Kenya. He seated us and with what English he had, we were laughing within moments. It was truly wonderful how he got the French group of four (who joined us for the backwater tour) laughing considering how little English they all shared.
Kunjachan’s wife soon brought out breakfast for the lot of us - a meal I had yet to come across in India: Plain white noodles over a bed of sugared coconut. I had seconds.
Soon after, Kunjachan loaded us into a long canoe and our tour of the Kerelan backwaters began. We had opted for a smaller boat to tour the backwaters, not just out of cost but also for the chance to see life along some of the smaller quieter canals were a houseboat would never be able to go. Aside from the melodic racket of birds in the expanding and flowering greenery, the only other sound that filled us was the relaxing flutter of water as Kunjachan lowered his oar into the water.
For the first quarter of the tour he kept asking us if was liked the canal we were on, as if this were his first time being a tour guide and nervous at his performance. When it was clear that we were all generally happy, he seemed reassured and we all enjoyed the sights as they slowly lulled past.
At several points we passed vast stretches of rice paddies and I noticed with curiosity that the water level of the canal was higher than the whole of the paddy, almost as if we were riding in an elevated aqueduct. Women and men bathed at the canal side, and washed clothes, swinging the wet whips high above their heads and smacking them down on smooth rock.
When the sun had stretched to its highest point and began to relax, Kunjachan turned us back towards his home. There, his wife had lunch already prepared. That morning we had watched as a man in a canoe had pulled up just outside of Kunjachan’s wife had purchased fish from the man after he had weighed an amount on an old scale placed next to the bucket of fish in his boat. They had now been fried and accompanied a regional version of Thali. A rice dish that comes with several small dishes filled with different curries and masala mixes. Our plates proved to be banana leaves.
Shortly after taking off from Goa on the motorcycle, I had decided to do away with the tourist caution that had guarded my food decisions. I had spent much of my time in Nepal and Rajasthan sick and figured any caution I had really didn’t do me any good. I now ate whatever was placed in front of me (including the tap water), regardless of the scared rumors that visitors of India carry from home, and I ate my food with my hand, just as all the other Indians who I watched in restaurants eat. There is a wonderful sensation in being able to touch one’s food as one eats it. The experience has made me wonder if it is part of the reason why hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza are so popular in the United States - all foods that we eat with our hands.
For family reading this, let this be a warning that the next time I make dinner, utensils may not be allowed.
After our meal of rice and masala with fired fish, Kunjachan offered to go buy us coconut beer. Apparently certain palm trees produce a certain coconut that naturally ferments some of the sugars in its milk and creates a naturally alcoholic mix.
The alcoholic percentage is low, but I still managed to get pretty buzzed off the stuff, even though the taste was far counter to the spirited beverages I’m accustomed to. Coconut beer has a slightly fizzy texture as if it had almost been carbonated and the taste is a bit like the smell of warm, slightly stale milk, and altogether something that might taste like a partially rotten cashew. Needless to say, I was the only one who drank much of it and what remained of my share I offered to Kunjachan, who, after some customary protestations, accepted my proffered beer and downed the rest of it like a college kid. The old man, jovial and a true expression of hospitality, is a credit to the fact that wonderful people can be found anywhere and everywhere.
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