We are now in Alappuzha, the so called Venice of the east. Pancakes stuffed with freshly grated coconut for breakfast...Shrove Tuesday though I didn't realise! We can't decide about how to explore the backwaters.
I had already cancelled our 24 hour house boat after talking to other travellers and delving into the travel sites. These luxury craft can only sail up the main canals and I want to explore the little narrow backwaters.
So for the first day we jumped on a public ferry going south to a little village, the boat criss crossing the canal to pick up and drop off and then a short cut across a lake shimmering in the heat. Little brightly coloured houses line the canal, everyone going about their daily tasks, and behind the houses vibrant green paddy fields stretching for miles.
We got off at Nedamudi, and gingerly entered a tiny restaurant, pointed at a plate of food and were served a most delicious Thali. The next boat was going north to an isolated lake, and back, so we took that and in the end spent more than five hours travelling the backwaters, chatting to passengers and providing entertainment for tiny school kids in the afternoon when the boat turned into a school bus picking up from local waterside schools. Then at each jetty some jumped off and ran home along the paths or jumped on the back of bikes. Not a parent in sight!
So in all our day cost 200 rupees instead of 6000...we won't know how our experience differed to a day on a houseboat, though we passed many on the channels, and now we are waiting for our canoe boat skipper to collect us!
