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Other entries in Kollam

Backwater Cruise

We arrived in Kollam in the early hours of the morning, with no accommodation booked. We phoned a few places from the STD booth at the bus station - a quick note here, Indian public phones are called 'STD' booths. Quite why, i'm not sure - i assume it stands for something - but it's a source of amusement for the more simple-minded among us.

Anyway, having found somewhere that:

a) was open
b) had a vacancy

...we hired a Boss. When we got to the room, we just about had time to set our alarms before we crashed out.

Now that we'd arrived in Kerala, we had our sights set on a cruise of the backwaters. We dragged ourselves out of bed the next morning, and went to the reception, where we bought tickets. The cruise would take from 10am til 6pm, with a lunch break in the middle, and would double as our transport to the next place, Alappuzha.

Our hotel provided us with a tiny boat to cross the river to the main ferry docking point. We got ourselves some decent seats on the top deck and prepared for a nice lazy day. The boat gradually filled up with other tourists from all over the place, including an Israeli lady sat behind us who we chatted to throughout the day. The boat set off around 10.30am, and within fifteen minutes, the boatman was pootling about asking if anyone wanted a Kingfisher!

As the boat moved down the rivers, we saw some interesting things; lots of Chinese fishing nets, which i'd never seen before - and had no clue how they worked - and loads of small fishing boats, with guys throwing nets into the water, seeing what they could catch.

At times, the river became very narrow and we were only a few yards from the banks, along which are lots of small huts - people live right on the side of the river. We saw lots of families out washing their clothes in the water, and plenty of kids jumping off the banks into the water for a bath/swim. I'd read in The Books about kids running along the riverbanks after the boats, shouting "One pen one pen!". An hour or two into the cruise and this was yet to happen - i assumed it was just a myth; that we wouldn't see anything like that. And yet. All of a sudden, there they were, a group of kids screaming across the water to us. "Please sir, one pen, just one school pen!". I guess pens are pretty hard to come by when you live out in the backwaters of Kerala. Somebody on the boat launched one through the air, over to the bank. It fell short, landing in the water. Refusing to write off the prospect of a new pen, the kids dived in headfirst after it!

The boat pulled over and we got out for lunch at a restaurant right on the side of the river. We were all served thalis, which is a selection of different dishes (what you actually get varies depending on what region of India you are in). It was served on a banana leaf (as opposed to a plate), and was an eat-with-your-right-hand affair. We're usually the only tourists in restaurants like that, so everyone stares at us. It was great to be able to see a horde of fellow Westerners struggle to eat with their hand, grimacing as they plunged their fingers into what is effectively - at times - liquid curry, and generally making a bit of a mess.

We got back onto the boat, sat back and relaxed as we continued moseying on down the rivers. An hour or two later we pulled over again. Agent Dolac satisfied his Chai addiction and we had a bit of tiffin to keep us going for the rest of the day. I gave my spare pen to a schoolkid whose face lit up as if it was the best present he had ever received in his entire life.

The next stop was at an Ashram, which is a kind of commune where people go for spiritual enlightenment (or something), staying for a period of time (some stay for a week, others for years...), maintaining the commune themselves and doing lots of yoga, stuff like that. You could only get off and look around if you were going to stay there - which we weren't - so we waited whilst the boat picked up some people who were leaving.

We set off again, supping on a nice cold beer, and feeling the effects of sitting in the sun for six hours (i.e. ouch). An hour or two later, we entered some kind of canal system, drifting slowly into Alappuzha...

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