House Boat Paradise

We arrive in Kollam from Varkala, the beating hot sun at its strongest, and head straight to the jetty to book our house boat. Had been given lots of advice and recommendations. The booking took about 3 hours and we headed to find some food. Probably took so long because I started chatting to the guy and got involved in a long conversation, and next thing he is telling us about his family and career plans. They love to chat here and I love to chat but it never ends. Lots of places have little western options of food and neither of us felt like curry but had no choice. We shared two things which we hardly ate. Our hotel room was on the side of the main road and throughout the night there were thousands of cars just buzzing past the window. Some sounded more like aeroplanes.

Kollam Main road
At 10.30am the next morning we got onto our houseboat. The House Boats are made from bamboo and coconut fibres and are absolutely beautiful. Ours was a single room, with its own bathroom, and we had a boat captain, engineer and chef. The team were great and we spent ages chatting to them.

Chilling in our houseboat and taking in the views of the locals

As we arrive on the boat there is a big bowl of fruit and great comfy chairs and mattress on the deck for us to lie on as the boat cruises. It went towards Munroe Island, near Kollam, then we got onto a canoe with a guy called Ramenem, who took us on a village tour. This lasted about 3 hours. It was grest to see the ladies doing coir making, which is rope made from coconut fibres, and cocnut oil factory. The canals and waterways are curvy and narrow and was great to go past all the little villages and locals busy with their days work, washing clothes, building canoes, cutting coconuts. There were loads of prawn farms which are covered with ropes above the water to stop the birds from chwing the prawns. Each time we passed little children, they would shout "pen please, one pen please." We were prepared from the children in other villages, and if they were close enough, we stopped in the canoe to give them pens.

We got back onto our House Boat at about 3pm and ate pineapple and chilled on the boat deck as it cruised the canals. We passed hundreds of fishermen and other canoes crossing the canals with people, coconuts, bicycles, a car and even a goat. All the boats have to stop moving at 6pm so they put down the anchor and we stopped for the night. All we could see on Lake Ashtamudi were palm trees. So so gorgeous. The name of the lake comes from the word meaning eight and the word meaning hair, as there are eight small connections that make up the lake. The chef made us such awesome food, similar to what he had made us for lunch. We told him it had been our best Indian meal as for once, you could recognise the veggies from the sauce. Most cases involve more sauce than anything else. The food was great. We chilled on the deck and then went to sleep in our little room. It was so quiet and beautiful. Right: Coir making

We woke up in the morning to the smell of curry. I said to Ant that we should tell him that we loved his food but weren't up for a curry for breakfast. They love a curry for breakfast here. The chef took some convincing and eventually gave us some pineapple and coffee but was in great disbelief that we were turning down his hot breakfast.

Our boat and the food.

We arrived back in Kollam and got straight onto a ferry that brought us to Appelley. The cruise was 8 hours long and seemed to just go on and on. It was great to see more of the backwaters and village people.

Allepey feels like about forty degrees, probably only about thirty-six, but yowzers, its so hot. We have a great room in a guesthouse so spending time just chilling there. Your clothes are literally sopping wet within minutes of leaving the cool room, dripping dripping dripping!

Pics below are: Cocunuts drying in the sun, The early morning view from our window on the boat, Sim with our crew, Chinese fishing nets used on the lake and us chilling.