Fascinating Cruise of the Backwaters of Alleppey India

Arriving in Kochi
We flew into Kochi International Airport. An airport that Kochi residence take great pride in as it is the first fully solar powered airport in the world...except for the planes, crack that and we solve global warming! We had another lovely taxi driver take us to The Radisson Blu Kochi. I do have to say the taxi drivers in India are second to none (exception for Uber driver). Once you get into the cab, even after you have negotiated a fair price for all concerned, they take it as their personal mission to get you from A to B as safely as is possible. While continuously mind reading other drivers because, as you know by now, rules of the road don’t apply in India. There’s none of this 'drop you at the side of the road' crap with all your bags as we have come to accept in Ireland and pay a premium.

Perhaps it's the same in other countries, let me know! No, these men will fight off hustlers on your behalf. Haul your bags into and out of the car and insure that you are delivered safely inside your door or to the concierge of whatever establishment you have booked. So big ‘thank you’ to all our drivers in India. If you are planning to do any traveling in India save yourself a lot of hassle and get a driver, its really not as expensive as you might think bearing no relation to European prices. We are safely delivered to the Radisson Blu which we have booked for 5 nights and that is costing us a total of €260 including breakfast. Just out of curiosity and to save readers the effort I checked to see what Radisson Dublin were charging for a Thursday night in April and it is €162 for one night room only. So if you are thinking of traveling further than Benidorm perhaps think about braving a longer flight. Take the opportunity to travel to those places we usually only see on telly and meet those beautiful smiling people who don’t just smile for the cameras they really are that friendly.

We were offered an upgrade because of the Genius scheme from Booking.com, now as I am not usually privy to these perks I cannot say how it might compare as perks go. But sufficient to say we got a massage chair, not one of those mats you put onto a chair a proper state of the art (as they say) serves no other purpose, massage chair. They retail for around €4000 at home so your quids in after 57 massages at €70 a pop!

So fair to say we are very happy with the room. Next thing is to check out the restaurant. It's taken me a while to realise that most hotels even those that claim to be catering to a western pallet do not. Most Asian people don’t like our bland food, while most Europeans cant fathom how to eat curry for breakfast. What is a bigger realisation for me is how little accommodation we in Europe give to other cultures yet I pretty much expect a full Irish and trust me I am daily disappointed on this journey. I think I have become that caricature of a holiday maker from a 1980's sitcom looking for my chips and beans. I’d kill for chips, beans and Clonakilty sausages.

Radisson Blu Kochi

Alleppey Cruise
We took a day trip to Alappuzha (Alleppey) which is about an hour and a half drive from Kochi city. Our driver picked us up 9 am on another not surprisingly sunny day. We arrived at the town about 10:30 am and met the captain of our little boat who’s name was Manute. Alleppey is a area of low lying wet lands which in the past 200 years has been reclaimed for agriculture use. In doing so the people have created a series of interconnected canals and waterways. Our boat trip was to last 3 hours with confidence say we only saw a fraction of it. We got into our beautiful little boat with roof to keep off the sun and open sides to admire the view. The boat had the capacity to take 7 passengers seated. There were two cushions to the front nose of he boat for two passengers to sit up front. Just in the middle of the boat was a beautiful Chaise lounge for those wishing to recline throughout the trip. There were 4 white plastic garden chairs to the back with towels covering each. If the towel slipped you quickly realised they were not purely decorative as in this heat and humidity plastic and skin are not a comfortable combination. I imagined my cousins, Karen and Annette sitting on those deck chairs, admiring the view and passing out the toffees saying “go on have another one”. As we moved along we noticed that there were many large houseboats docked and empty. Manute explained that these would (pre-covid) have been full and out on the water for week long tours. They had kitchens and bars and all the comforts the western travellers needed but they were sitting idle for the past two years.

We moved away from the bank and made our way down the canal we passed other small boats docked along the canal. These boat owners waved and shouted 'welcome', some ask where we were from and we proudly shouted 'Ireland!'. I am constantly amazed at how welcoming people are to us. Manute said that they see our presence as a sign of hope that covid is over and life may be getting back to normal. There was no envy that Manute had a fare and they didn't, they were genuinely happy to see business being done by one of their own. We head across open water to connect with a canal system a short distance across the lake. We pass a few of the bigger house boats which seemed fully loaded with passengers. Manute explains that they adapted to the lack of tourism by doing day trips on Sundays for locals which meant dropping prices and for most this was their only income in the past two years. Manute told us that he was a general handyman and could pretty much turn his hand to anything. He was also a farmer and so was not totally dependent on the income the boat brought. He was married with two children and for him the income from the boat is an extra. That income makes life easier but he was lucky, he told us, because he was diversified he said laughing. Through the many canal ways we went the boat moving up and down different channels. Its difficult to describe this place. Its called the Venice of the East but you can put out of your mind any idea of ornate bridges and Cornetto advertisements, water is the only thing these two places have in common. Imagine a series of flooded fields with raised banks between each field. The main banks are approximately 10 meters wide on which stand houses. The older houses are brick built and look to be two possibly three roomed homes. The door is open on most so I couldn’t help but see inside. The front door leads straight to the living room with a three piece suite and a television. Beyond that room a door lead out to what looked like an open kitchen come utility area, it was sheltered but not closed in. What utilities these houses had I just don’t know but Manute had mentioned with some pride that his wife had a washing machine. Children played outside running along the banks and between the houses chasing each other reminding me of my own childhood before the advent of hyper caution and play stations.

Boat cruise heading towards the floating village

In recent years, many houses had been flooded and so new houses tended to be built on concrete stilts to approximately ten feet off the ground. The new houses looked really modern, not just elevated and you could tell they belonged to younger or bigger families. The older one- room houses were clearly owned by single older people and it was only by looking in their faces that you could tell their age. I saw a woman who must have been at least in her eighties haul a stack of rice on her back along the bank to her house. The sack had to have been about 20 or 30 kg. Even though this area produced a lot of rice there wasn’t enough to feed all the people, so the government subsidised supplies for those in need such as the older lady I had seen. Large areas of agricultural land had been lost during the repeated flooding. As the water rises it breeches the banks which then allow salt water to wash in and contaminate the land with salt water. Efforts had been made to reclaim the damaged fields but it was happening so often it was becoming impossible to continually maintain the outer banks. It was cheaper for the government to pay the rice farmers not to work than reclaim what was lost.

The schools, temples and medical dispensaries all occupy the wider banks with narrower banks used to walk between fields or to other villages. It looks idyllic. Each house has a small stepped area just outside the front door. There are four or five steps with a brick wall stretching about five feet to support the bank. Here the women wash their clothes or their children or themselves. These travels of mine have made me realise just how much I take for granted. I couldn’t imagine a house without indoor plumbing. Yet watching these people going about their daily activities reminds me of my many relatives who would go to the village well to get there drinking water. A huge barrel at the side of the house collected rain water for general washing. We journeyed along the waterways going by many villages and homes. There were times when rounding a bend we would inadvertently intrude on a family bathing in the water. The laughing, joking and general chatter among themselves would instantly stop and silence would fall like a guillotine, then they would pretend not to see us and we not see them until we awkwardly got out of view. They tolerate us because we bring much needed revenue to the area and that revenue employs many of their friends and neighbours. But I have no doubt that if helping my friends and neighbours required strangers walking through my living room I would not be so accommodating.

Alleppey Floating Village

Around the next bend we come upon the floating traveling shop. Its no Tescos in a giant barge, just a little rowing boat. The shopkeeper sits in the back with all the goods for sale to the front. They travel the canals selling fruit and veg or bread just about whatever you might need from your local corner shop they will bring to your door. As they approach a home they ring a bell and out comes the lady of the house to make her choice. It reminded me of childhood summers in Geesala and the traveling shop which toured the side roads and Cul-de-Sacks of Erris in the days when only a few had cars. Pat Walsh drove the truck for many years and although I cannot remember how often during a week the truck did the rounds I do remember the routine; As he approached a house along the road he would beep the horn of the truck and wait a few minutes to see if anyone was about. The lady of the house would pull back the net curtain with eyes popping and waving her purse as a code to say I’m on my way, hold on there, seconds later she is running down the small pathway simultaneously pulling on her coat. Pat would be waiting at the back of the truck ready to fill a cardboard box with what was requested. The truck was lined on both sides with floor to ceiling shelving from which Pat would gather all the goods required. The ladies would recite from the list they held in their hands the items they were looking to purchase. It was usually simple enough stuff but occasionally they would ask for fancy bits because they had cousins arriving from Dublin or England. All those memories reawakened by a boat on the Alappuzha waterways and that is one of the unexpected gifts of this amazing trip.