We tore ourselves away from the beach at Varkala to go exploring the Kerala Backwaters on a houseboat. We got a taxi to Kollam, about an hours drive away, where we met up with our boat and 4 crew (even though there was only two of us!) for our one day and a night adventure on the Backwaters.
The ‘Dream House’ as the barge was called had two bedrooms and came equipped with everything needed for the night – well a bed and bathroom anyway, and most importantly a captain and a cook . We headed off through the wider waters of Kollam then turned off into the smaller coconut palmed lined canals of the backwaters. After a couple of hours we moored up for lunch which included an array of Keralan dishes that were all very colourful, full of coconut and extremely delicious. After lunch we set off again and it wasn’t too long before we stopped to meet our local guide who was to show us the smaller backwaters that wind round the villages in his canoe.
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We got out of the canoe a couple of times (some slight relief from sitting on the hard planks), first to see some villagers building a large canoe (about 15m) by hand. The second time we wandered around the canal banks while our guide pointed out herbs, tamarind, chillies, peppercorns (bloody hot), pineapples and more- handy if we ever find ourselves needing to survive off the Keralan land! Then it was back though the tiny canals to the houseboat, ducking under low bridges and trees and spotting water snakes along the way.
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We moored up for the night just before sunset. We tried our hand at fishing, along with the help of a local lad who jumped on board, but apart from a couple of plastic bags and some weed we didn’t have much luck! Dinner that night was a fish curry and a vegetable korma, then along with the firefly’s and geckos it was time to settle in for the evening. The next morning it was breakfast on route back to Kollam and as we’d decided the night before, a last minute change of plan and we were heading back to Varkala. Mark had a cold and favoured the warm sea air rather than heading up into the hill country. Another thing to come back and see next time, and hopefully up in Darjeeling!
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