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Backwaters - At Last!

The next morning sees yet another trudge to the bus stand - for which trip we use a cab, what irony! -- and yet another round of questionings as to buses and destinations and timings. We are beginning to feel like old hands at this. We manage to board the right bus easily and get a good seat. We reach Quilon in good time - though once again without breakfast - and are shown to the ferry by touts who have been strategically placed for this very purpose. We are the first to board, but eventually there are almost twenty passengers aboard and we set off.

The first sight to excite us is the houseboats. We have heard of them and they look every bit as picturesque as we had imagined. If only, I think. But I knew even before leaving Bangalore that a houseboat would be well outside our budget. So I settle back into my ferry seat and busily start clicking away.

Quilon to Alleppey is an eight hour journey, and every bit as relaxing and pretty as I had pictured. What I had not imagined are the neat road signs that we pass at every step of the way. Bridges all have clearance and distance to major ports marked. At major crossroads and intersections, there are frequently arrows showing the way. There are houses lining the waterways, and we see women washing clothes, children playing and running alongside, shouting and waving to us. One of them yells I love you and we all laugh. There are fishing boats, and fishing nets fixed into the ground. The water must be very shallow because boats with high keels have been pulled out of the water onto rails. Those in the water are mostly catamarans, which are powered by a man pushing a long pole into the water and apparently pushing the ground away. Fishing trawlers are also mostly lined up at the banks. We pass a few houseboats, and occasionally catch sight of another ferry following us. A group of seven climbs aboard part way, while a travelling salesman is dropped at a mysterious halfway point. But mostly the journey just goes on, quietly, through still waters, sometimes just narrow channels which can scarcely accommodate our vessel, sometimes through broad stretches where land and greenery and only visible low on the horizon. After a while, we see the sea, and then there is just a strip of rocks separating the breakers from our still waters. We pass close to the sea for some time, but mostly the view is blocked by necks of land, and the ever-present palm trees.

At two, when Amit and I are despairing of ever getting any food, we stop for lunch. It is a tiny roadside halt, two rickety wooden tables which might seat a dozen people, and rickety wooden benches alongside. There is rice and curry, fish fry, shrimps in a strange, indefinable dry masala, and tiny quantities of mysterious vegetables, quite nice to eat. Amit and I are the first to dig in, with undisguised relish. The foreigners on the trip are game to try it, and manage, after some reluctance, to get by without cutlery. It is the Indian group of students who climbed on midway, who wrinkle up their noses at the look of the place, and the fat, rough grains of rice. They ask for parantha and egg curry, but then fuss when they realise it is duck egg. Since the ducks are very much in evidence and good-looking, brown speckled ducks to boot, I don't quite see what their problem is.

Meanwhile we have gone through the food at an abominable rate and are looking for more fish fry and shrimps, which are delicious. Unfortunately there isn't any more, so we finish up and are ready to leave, procuring, first, the last bar of Kitkat available.

Most of the boat takes a post-prandial nap, and we have the front deck to ourselves. In the morning it had rained enough to send us under, to the lower deck for short stretches of time. Late in the afternoon the sun emerges and casts a different light on the passing sights. We climb onto the roof of the driver's cabin, drape ourselves comfortably and watch, to the accompaniment of soft giggles from a fellow passenger who is reading Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (which, hearing his merriment and on Amit's recommendation, I immediately resolve to buy).

Most of the boat takes a post-prandial nap, and we have the front deck to ourselves. In the morning it had rained enough to send us under, to the lower deck for short stretches of time. Late in the afternoon the sun emerges and casts a different light on the passing sights. We climb onto the roof of the driver's cabin, drape ourselves comfortably and watch, to the accompaniment of soft giggles from a fellow passenger who is reading Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (which, hearing his merriment and on Amit's recommendation, I immediately resolve to buy).

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