Seesea Travel Blog

Travel Location: Alleppey,India

May 12-14, 2008

Alappuzha (Alleppey)

(Matt)

Feeling unable to pluck ourselves out of the lap of luxury in Ft. Cochin and drop ourselves immediately into the madness of an Indian bus station on the mainland, we decided to ease back into travel by getting a cab all the way from Ft. Cochin to Alappuzha, also called Alleppey. This was expensive, over $20, when a bus or train would have been about $2, but it was also completely painless, which is worth a lot on the road.

After an hour or so, we were deposited in Alappuzha at our guesthouse, which was a compound called Gowri Residence. Like most places here, it was vacant except for us and the staff, though another couple came in the next night. One thing that has been fairly uniform throughout India is that hotels are run by large staffs of young males who live at the hotel, sometimes even in the hallway outside our door. Gowri was no exception. The staff boys outnumbered us by 5. Like other hotels, it had the feeling like we were in their home and were unexpected, though not necessarily unwelcome, guests.

 

Alleppey is the best location to visit the backwaters, which is a major highlight of the state of Kerala. The backwaters consist of a 900km-network of waterways that runs along the coast and a good distance inland.

(Amber)

Notice that Matt changes back and forth between two city names. Since the end of Britain’s rule here, most major cities have two names….the one used under the Raj and the one used afterwards. And they are used interchangeably. Sometimes, for example, the airline might fly to Madras. Sometimes, it might fly to Chennai. Those cities are one and the same. The lack of uniformity makes reading a map and planning transport a bit more difficult–Matt and I don’t even call cities the same name when discussing them–but once you know both names of places, you’re fine.

(Matt)

We walked around town determining our options and ended up arranging with our guesthouse a covered canoe for a tour of the backwaters at the rate of 200 rupees (about $5) per hour.

 

We got up at 7:30am, ate breakfast at our guesthouse compound, and finally (after some confusion) got picked up by a rickshaw carrying our canoe captain, “Sha-gee”. The rickshaw dropped us off at a canal in town, and we walked to our canoe, which sat on a canal that was in the process of digesting most of the neighboring boats.

When I arranged this canoe trip with our guesthouse the night before, they showed me a picture of a covered backwater canoe. There were two paddlers provided, one on the front and one on the back. The tourists sat under covered part of the canoe comfortably being rowed around like kings. After we climbed in the canoe, the captain informed me that I was the other paddler in the front. I did this for a few minutes and realized that we had definitely paid too much to paddle our own canoe because it was really hard work. After 4 hours, I was totally exhausted. Amber even started paddling during the last hour to help us out, though based upon the pleasant singing coming from back of the canoe, I doubt the captain was struggling like I was.

 

(Amber)

The last two hours…I paddled for the last TWO hours. And I must say, we went so much faster those two hours than the previous two. [Note from Matt: For the sake of marital harmony, I'll let the above statement slide, though it is incorrect.]

(Matt)

The trip itself was really nice. It was totally peaceful. We paddled through the palm-fringed canals and villages along the backwaters where the villagers went about their chores. They fished, tended livestock living on the same narrow strips of land, mended nets, washed dishes, dried fish, and laundered clothes by beating them on rocks. The villagers, especially the children, waved and were genuinely excited that we were paddling through their world. While we were paddling along, larger canoes, some paddled and some punted, passed us loaded down with cargo to go to the villages.

(Amber)

Women on the shore all do laundry in the river. They walk down to the river with a large aluminum bowl. They fill the bowl with river water, some soap, and the laundry. And they tirelessly scrub and pound laundry on the rocks until it’s squeaky clean. If I had a nickel for the number of hours women in this world break their backs on laundry, I would be a rich woman. But if anyone ever hears me complain about carrying our laundry to the garage where machines await to wash and dry….please slap me. Or make me go down to Ladybird Lake with a bowl and handle it there for a week or so.

 

(Matt)

It was a really beautiful stop in Kerala…Plus, it was a great workout. After the boat trip, I went directly to bed and slept for 3 hours. I was beat.

(Amber)

The backwaters were beautiful, peaceful, and teaming with the slow and constant pace of Indian life. People fished using just pieces of string and somehow caught enough to fry up the most aromatic fish and coconut curry that was simmering all along the canal around the noon hour. It was all gorgeous and completely worth it.

We stopped at a little stand once for a drink. It belonged to friends of our boat captain. We drank a coke, talked to the people who ran the stand, and were quickly handed their pet eagle to hold.

Toward the end of our paddle, the captain took us by his home. It was a one-room house on the water of a less-scenic canal in Alappuzha. His wife was at the water doing laundry, and his son was running around. When they saw us, they beamed and waved. They were clearly so proud of him. His son, like many of the children along the backwaters, asked us for a pen. This is one of a handful of phrases that most kids here know in English: “Where are you from?”, “What is your name?”, and “Do you have a pen for school?” We tipped Sha-gee pretty generously and included a pen for his son.

 

The backwaters were amazing. Walking through Alleppey was pretty rough though. In towns and cities here, you’re always playing Frogger…..but in Alleppey, it’s Frogger times 10, and it’s exhausting to walk in, which is hilarious because the Lonely Plant describes it as a great walking city. It is a good guidebook for sure, but sometimes we don’t understand where the writers are coming from.

We did find a great little restaurant where we ate 3 or 4 times. For 75 cents total, we got the following…..

-chapati

-2 bowls of veggie curry and kuruma

-1 masala dosa

-2 waters

-2 chais

-2 ice creams called Cone Tops, by a company competing with Walls called Uncle John’s

The first time we went, we tipped our waiter 50 cents on our 75 cent check, so we were well-loved every time we returned. Our biggest money problem here was trying to find someone who would break the equivalent of a $20 bill. That was tough.

The people, as is common, are welcoming, warm, and teaming with smiles of remarkably straight and white teeth.

 

I usually have random thoughts, but I’ve decided that I occasionally have random stories too. So here’s a random story from Alleppey.

Matt and I had spent the day walking around town….in and out of traffic, by all of the vendors and people and cows and temples, etc…It was scorching hot, so we allowed ourselves to be beckoned into a juice stand by its friendly owner. The fruit here has been incredible, and the fresh juice is heavenly. It’s very tropical in Kerala, and the locally grown fruit is awesome. We will definitely be a fresh juice only-and-daily family when we get home.

Anyway, the juice stand guy was so excited to have us in his shop. He wanted to make sure his young daughter saw us and waved, and then he eagerly took our order. A few seconds later, delightful pineapple juice (similar to the kind we drink daily here) came out. But there was a problem…..Ice was floating in it, and it did not have any holes or other signs of being manufactured by a company using purified water.

 

(Note from Matt) This is Travel 101: Never drink beverages with ice that was produced by a restaurant because it was likely made with local tap water that will make a traveler sick, though it probably would not affect a local. So dirty ice at this juice stand could end our “in India for 5 weeks and not sick yet” streak, which is an impressive run. It could end it with a vengeance.

(Back to Amber) But the excited and happy juice man was staring at us. He wanted to watch our response to the wonderful juice that he was so proud of. I looked at Matt and said under my breath, “Matt, the juice has ice in it.”

He confirmed and looked back at me with a look of clear concern said, “This could kill us.”

“They are watching us,” I reminded him, and Matt looked up to see the kindly owner and his enamored little daughter looking over the counter at us, both smiling ear to ear.

 

Smiling back at the owner and his daughter, I quietly proposed a strategy to minimize the likelihood of death, “We have to drink it really fast before it melts.”

Matt agreed, “Yea, I think we have to do it. Suck it down fast!” We finished them off within one second, like it was some sort of weird contest. The owner and his daughter were pleased but are probably still trying to explain to their friends and families theories about how and why these weird foreigners inhaled his juice in a second. Were they that thirsty? Is that how foreigners drink juice? Is that how foreigners show appreciation?…We may have started legends with that single act of self preservation.

We then raved about how that was the best juice we’d ever had, and everyone was happy.  It struck me then how totally absurd and hilarious our daily dilemmas have become. Incidentally, we didn’t get sick. I don’t know if the ice was better than it looked or if my drink-it-fast theory worked…..but either way, we are alive to tell the tale and to add the random stories section to our blog. All without hurting the juice man’s feelings. And by the way, I wasn’t nearly as tired as Matt was after the paddle:)

For photos, click here: http://share.shutterfly.com /action/welcome?sid=8AatmbZk0Zt FHnM