Kerala, India
Friday, February 29th, 2008
Our home for the last 3 days
Life is good. It’s not hard getting up in the morning with a warm cup of coffee to watch the sun rise over the Keralan backwaters. Over the past two months, it’s probably the most peaceful and restful place we’ve been. Now that we’re done, it’s a wonder why anyone coming to India would not spend at least a few days cruising these waterways and enjoying the rural Indian life here.
Watching the palm trees and rice paddies go by
For three days and two nights, the boat above was our home and is modeled after a traditional Indian “rice barge”. It was just Shelly and I and our four person crew, who we added to our list of international friends. Life on board was pretty simple and went something like this… wake up, drink coffee and eat breakfast, go back to sleep, eat again and drink local beer (note: Kingfisher is good), watch palm trees go by, eat dinner and drink local beer, play Donkey (local card game) with the crew until bed time, and repeat the next day.
On our second day, the crew made something special for us. The chef whipped up a traditional Keralan meal, which is typically served at weddings. We went local and ate off banana leaves with our hands. It was a neat experience and the crew hovered over us as we ate to make sure every bite was perfect and to our liking. The picture below was our lunchtime spread.
During our travels, we only set foot on land for about an hour as we toured a local village. The picture below is of Shelly sporting her Indian dot, given by the crew, with some local school children who were all clamoring to get in the picture.
Lastly, below are some pictures to give you idea of what the palm tree lined backwaters are about. They are maze of freshwater canals that total about 900 km in length and have been used for hundreds of years as the “highways” for southwestern India. The first picture is of one of the crew steering our boat down one of the narrower canals. The second is of Shelly watching the sun go down on our final night.
Tomorrow we head to Mumbai for a quick 2 day layover before departing for Thailand. Shelly promises to write our final India post so stay tuned!
nkurtz