Varkalla

When I arrive from Alleppey I don’t feel well and sleep for much of the first day. I emerge in the afternoon to discover where I am and go in search of a cup of tea and something bland to eat – a piece of toast would be just right.

Varkalla beach is a touristy seaside place and the noise of the Arabian sea is always there in the background as it crashes constantly against the cliffs. My accommodation is in a block of 8 rooms, just set back from the cliff and about 1km from the main beach and at the far end of the touristiness. The room is rather dingy, but it has a nice shady area for sitting out and a view through the palm trees to the sea.

Sunset from my room

I wander out to the cliff, past 3-4 bamboo shops with the shopkeepers outside – ‘Look in my shop, I have nice things’- and a blind beggar and find a restaurant within 100m. It is run by some quiet Nepalese men and comes with free wi-fi and tea and toast with honey. We talk about the earthquake that has just happened in Northern India and Nepal. We take a look at the internet on my laptop, but there is very little news yet and they are scared and worried for their families. Selfishly I can’t help wondering if this will affect the next part of my trip. I am due to fly to Kathmandu in a week.

 There are very few tourists round, being before the main season, which starts in Oct/Nov.  Germans seem to make up the largest group of westerners. I don’t have a highly efficient gay-dar, but am aware that there seem to be several pairs of male friends around. Two very thin men sit together at the front of the café and then get up to compare the flexibility of their shoulders. They talk about their fitness regimes in accented English. The Nepalese waiters smile and look confused.

The second day I am feeling better again and walk along the cliff in both directions to get a better feel for the place.  First of all I follow a brick-built walkway north, away from the tourist area. The cliffs are lower here and a rip-rap of boulders protects the shore, but makes it impossible to get to the water until the next little sandy beach, called Odayam.

Coast north of Varkalla

I find a little shade at the back of the beach and sit on a log under some palm trees.  It is very quiet on the beach. In some shade  at the back some men are sorting out fishing nets. Lying on the beach are lengths of cut and shaped trunks of palm trees arranged in groups of 3.

Sorting out fishing nets

The waves look ferocious and there are no lifeguards here. One of the thin men from yesterday is in the sea and jumping in and through the waves vigorously. I worry for his safety. I watch an Indian man walk to the edge of the sea, he stands in the shallows and waves a cloth above his head and shouts. I think he is waving to the thin man, but then realise there is a tiny boat just beyond the surf and he is waving to it to come in. Two men turn the boat and paddle it through the surf to the shore.

Fisherman calls in the boat

The three of them drag it beyond the waves and then undo chords attached at each end and the boat comes apart into three pieces – like those lying on the beach. Two of them lift the pieces one at a time onto their shoulders and lay them in a group at the back of the beach. The 3^rd man picks up a bundle of netting that was on the boat and takes it to a hut at the back of the beach.

Pulling in the boat

Two male tourists walk along the beach and join me on my log. They are German and we chat a little. One of them is funny and jokes about fish and chips and India belonging to the British. When they get up to leave he says, ‘God save the Queen’. I wonder if he is referring to Elizabeth or maybe himself?’ Long live Angela Merkel’ I respond, demonstrating an unusual general knowledge for me!

Further north I pass a colourful mosque and few closed-up tourist bungalows, but other than that there doesn’t seem to be much else and it’s too hot to walk far.

Mosque

Later in the day I walk in the other direction.  The main tourist area is a collection of restaurants, shops and accommodation that stretch for about 1km along the higher North Cliff, before dropping down to Varkalla beach.  Some places have not yet opened for the season and others are undergoing building and renovation.

Pre-season renovation

North Cliff Tibetan theme

Towards Varkalla beach

When I arrive at the beach itself in the late afternoon there are very few people there. A red flag is flying. The tide does not seem to move very far and there isn’t a large amount of beach.

Varkalla beach

In the early evening when it is cooler there is more going on. The Indians come out and stand on the beach. 2 lifeguards watch to make sure no-on goes in the water.

Early evening on the beach

Later a rickshaw driver tells me that in the main season the beach is very large and many tourists come and sleep there. Can it really be that the high tide line is so very different at different seasons? I must ask Andrew, he’ll be sure to know; or if not he’ll make up something that sounds plausible.

Some men are selling fish off a tarpaulin spread on the sand.

Selling fish off the beach

The next day I wake early and before it gets too hot I walk again to Odayam beach. This time the beach is a hive of local male fishing-related activity. Two men sit together at one side and mend a net in silence.  At the back of the beach a group of men use wooden poles to lever a big boat onto its side. They then set about banging its bottom with mallets. On the main part of the beach a large group of men are untangling some nets. From time to time a man wades into the sea, loosens his dhoti and washes his nether regions. The whole scene feels too private and too masculine for me to intrude, so I sit for a while behind a hut on the nearside of the beach and watch some crabs scuttling around in a rock pool.

Morning beach activity

It struck me that both beaches felt very different at different times of the day.

I take trip to Varkalla town which is about 4km away to do some shopping. On the way I pass this large man-made pool, which belongs to the nearby Hindu temple.  Can see it being used for washing – bodies and clothes – and one man is swimming a gentle backstroke across the middle. I don’t know if it has any religious significance or whether it is just a community facility.

Temple pool

I would like to buy a Keralan sari as a souvenir of my time here and some things for the grandchildren. I find a large shop with models outside wearing saris and girls and boys clothes.  It is a proper walk-in shop, with shoes left at the door. It is a little intimidating, as there is nothing on display to choose from, everything is neatly wrapped in cellophane and stacked behind long counters with plenty of staff to serve. I point to some material of plain undyed cotton with a gold boarder that looks about right. Very soon packets are opened and metres of material are shown to me. I begin to understand that the price is affected by the quality of the cotton and the intricacy of the work. A simple one with a gold border is about 400ruppees (about £5) and the most intricate one with peacocks and elephants embroidered on is about 4000 ruppees (about £50). I go or a simple design, as this is what I have seen being worn. Next I tackle the purchase of a dress for Megan. Girls clothes are on the floor above. Again everything is packed away on shelves behind the counter. 4 young girls help me, while giggling to each other. I indicate the approximate height of Megan and her age and point to the packets of pink clothes – Megan is a very pink girl! Eventually I choose a two piece confection with silver beads from the heap of possibilities on the counter. The boys and men’s clothes are up one floor again and the 4 girls take me up there. There is far less choice for boys in that they wear shirts and jeans – but I have never seen so many shirts in one room. I explain that I liked a little checked shirt on one of the dummies outside the shop. One of the girls goes down the two floors and comes back with him. There is much laughter as the dummies arms fall off as they all try to undress him.

The girls carry my 3 choices downstairs.  The process of packing and paying is equally labour-intensive. The girls pass the items to a man behind a counter who puts them into paper bags. He tells another man the prices. He prints out the receipts, which are passed to a girl at the cash desk who takes my money. Mission accomplished!

Clothes shop – ground floor

Back on North Cliff I have seen a shop advertising a seemingly strange combination of services – dress making and parcel packing. I go to talk to them about how to send my items back home.  The parcel is weighed and there and then they make a cover from the parcel by stitching it up in material using a treadle sewing machine– ingenious! Having paid for the postage and the packing service I leave the parcel with them together with Kate’s address written on a slip of paper. Let me know if it arrives safely in a couple of weeks, Kate.

Re the earthquake – I checked the news each day with the Nepalese waiters. By day four the death toll is up to 78, but all their families are safe. The main damage seems to have been in Sikkim. I contact my travel agent who looks into it and they get back to me to say that the local tour operator has an office in Kathmandu and for now it is quite safe for the tour to go ahead as planned. They will let me know if anything changes.

Traditional Keralan arts - Kalaripayattu martial art

Kalaripayattu is an ancient Keralan martial art. Kalari mean ‘school’, or ‘gymnasium’ and ‘payttu’ means ‘to fight’ or ‘to exercise’.  Training in the art goes through various stages. The beginning of the training is about body sequences involving twists, stances, complex jumps and turns. The next stage of training is in handling wooden weapons. Then comes the use of  metal weapons of sword and shield, followed by spear and flexible sword – a ferocious weapon like a metal cat-o-nine-tails. The final stage of training is in bare-handed fighting .

In Kumily there is a purpose-built auditorium. The performance arena is in a pit below the audience,  with a floor of sand and many lighted lamps at one end and one on each of the other walls. The audience consisted of foreign and Indian tourists. I sat between a couple of women from Singapore and a family group from Israel. The performance consisted of 4 young men showing us their physical skills, to a clashing drum-type accompaniment.

sword and shield

sword and spear



One particularly interesting presentation was to show how a sash can be used to disarm and immobilise a knife-brandishing opponent.

The final part of the presentation was for visual effect only, I think. The lights were dimmed and two men twirled fire sticks, like you can see on a Cornish beach of a summer evening, and then there was a circus-type act where one man did a flying forward roll through a fiery hoop.

Train

Leaving Chennamkary I decide to travel south down the coast. I was to take the 3.30pm train the 160km from  Alleppey to Varkalla. I arrived at the station half an hour early for the 3.30 train. I was pleasantly surprised with how spacious, clean and organised it all was. On the platform several women were sweeping the floor and there were plenty of modern metal seats. I went to the ticket office and asked for a sleeper class ticket to Varkalla. ‘4 o’clock train’, said the man behind the counter, ‘I thought it was 3.30?’ ‘4 o’clock’. 

There are many classes of tickets available on Indian trains: 2^nd class, which is unreserved seating in carriages with open windows – air cooled; sleeper, which is also unreserved and air-cooled. These carriages have benches during the day that become sleeping berths at night. Then there are 2 classes of air-conditioned carriages – 2 tier and 3 tier, which I assume relate to the number of berths. As it was only to be  a relatively short journey of 1 and a half hours  I chose the sleeper class. This would mean I could get into either the 2^nd class, or sleeper carriages when the train arrived.

I checked the time and the platform with the enquiry office. ‘4 o’clock, platform 1’ and walked out onto the platform. There didn’t seem to be any clues as to which platform was which. I could assume the first platform was number 1, but that might not be correct. Feeling slightly foolish I went back to the enquiry desk to check and yes platform 1 was the first one.

Alleppey station

The train was coming from Mumbai, some 1400km away, and I had been warned it could be late, so I settled down to wait. I watched the people catching the trains. A middle-aged couple with luggage wanted to get the train that was waiting on platform 3. It was a long distance train to Chennai and consisted of about 30 carriages. He climbed off the platform and onto the track, a height of about 4’ I guess , then took the luggage from his wife; crossed the two lines of track and put the luggage up on the opposite platform. He came back for his wife. She was of plump proportions and wearing a sari, which is not the most practical garment for physical gymnastics. She managed to sit on the edge of the platform and he grasped her around the hips to lift her to the track bed. The operation at the opposite platform was not so straight forward. He hoisted her up from behind by her hips, but her sari meant that she couldn’t get her leg out sideways to put her knee or foot up on the platform. She was lying on her tummy on the platform with her legs dangling. He jumped up and pulled her on her front onto the platfom, so she could then roll over and get up. I wondered if that was the only way to cross the tracks, in which case I was lucky my train was leaving from platform 1; I would struggle to do this with my rucksack. However looking further down the platform there was a footbridge about 200m away. I couldn’t get a picture of this, but here is one of a father and his young son crossing to the opposite platform.  When another train arrived t platform 2 this made it easier to access platform 3, because then the people only had to get down from one platform, climb up into the waiting platform 2 train, which had steps low enough down its sides to make this possible from the track; cross through it and walk across to platform 3

Crossing the tracks

The train officials were wearing a similar khaki uniform to the bus officials, but these me also had sticks of about 2’ in length that they either carried under their arm or swung at their side. They walked up and down in groups of 2 or 3 and stood around talking. I have heard that the Indian railways is the biggest employer in the world (the NHS comes second).

Soon after 4 o’clock there was an announcement that my train would be expected to arrive at 4.20. 4.20 came and went and at 4.30 the announcement said that the train would arrive shortly and it came in at 4.45. It was a similarly long train and it looked pretty full. Once in the train there was no obvious place for me to sit or put my luggage. A group of people did some shuffling around and indicated that I could sit down. My rucksack had to be partly blocking the aisle.  Once settle I could look around. It was all pretty gloomy. The open windows had bars, which restricted the view and light coming in, but presumably also stopped luggage and people from falling out, either accidently or deliberately. The walls would have originally been white, which is perhaps not the sensible choice. The seats were covered in blue plastic and the floor was blue lino.  Whereas a typical English train layout will probably have the aisle down the middle of the carriage and 4 seats and a table on each side of the aisle; in this train the aisle was off-set, so that on one side there were two single seats facing each other with a bunk above and on the other were two bench seats facing each other, the back of the back of the seats would become another two bunks and a further two bunks were up higher up again. There was space for luggage under the seats, or on the top bunks. So whereas an English train has seats for 8, in the comparable space in this Indian train 10 people could sit and 3 could lie on the top bunks. If all the seats were made into bunks 8 people could lie down individually.

In the section where I was sitting there were 2 middle-aged couples who looked like 2 sisters, married to two brothers. The whole time between 2 and 4 of them were talking simultaneously. There was also another separate couple who sat side-by-side. The woman sat by the window with a small table in front of her reading a paperback printed in Malayalam. She had a blow-up cushion behind her back that she adjusted occasionally. In the top bunks young men lay quietly; one had headphones on. Occasionally they would change position and a leg would hang over the side, or they would stretch out and put their feet across onto the opposite bunk. It was very hot in the carriage when we stopped in the stations, but the air-cooling made it bearable when we were moving. Several people selling tea, coffee and snacks came past. I didn’t see anyone buy anything. A man came by with a pile of magazines. He handed a  pile each to a woman and a man and moved up the aisle. They leafed through them. The woman seemed to have children’s workbooks - ABC etc and the man comic strips. The magazine seller came back and the man and the woman each bought a few.

After about ¾ hour the 2 couples started packing up and tidying their things, getting ready to leave the train. Once they had gone the rest of us in that space rearranged ourselves. The man moved across and sat opposite his wife. I noticed he was wearing western style clothes of shorts and striped polo shirt – the first time I have seen an Indian man wearing shorts. Next he picked up an empty plastic water bottle and squashed it flat. I could guess what was going to happen next. He casually put it out through the bars of the window and conscientiously waiting until we had gone through a station and left houses behind he dropped it onto the track. He then got up and walked up the aisle. When he came back his face and hair were totally wet. He used a small hand towel to dry himself then he got out a comb and standing to use the dirty mirror above the table, combed his hair neatly forward. Then he opened his bag and took out two small travel-sized products. One was hair oil that he squeezed onto the palm of his hand and then rubbed vigorously into his hair for several minutes. Then he stood up again and looking in the mirror parted his hair carefully and meticulously at the side. When he was satisfied with the neatness of his coiffure he sat down and picked up the 2^nd product. It was talc. Where was this going – under his arms, on his feet? No, he rubbed a small amount onto his hands and then rubbed it all over his face, wiping the excess off with his small towel and checking in the mirror. Then he was in his bag again to get out a neatly ironed and packed pair of trousers and cotton shirt with a collar. He took off his polo shirt, revealing a short sleeved vest and put on the clean shirt, then he disappeared down the carriage and came back wearing the clean trousers.

At just after 7pm we pulled into a station. It was never easy to see the station signs through the barred windows and I almost missed that we had arrived at Varkalla. I hurried with my bags to the train door and stepped out onto the platform. It was dark and a large flock of black birds were making a noise as they settled to roost for the night.

Chennamkary

Chennamkary is a small village on an island in the Backwaters about 10km from Alleppy.  Actually this island is cut across by canals, making even this island a collection of smaller islands. It is about 22km around the perimeter. About 10 000 people live in 7 villages. There is no road access and no motor vehicles.  Anna and one of her 3 children, Thomas, supplement their farming income by running a tourism business which is a co-operative of 7 island homes which take guests. Thomas is very knowledgeable and has excellent English. There are local activities to do such as village walks with Thomas, cycling and canoeing. Anna cooks up 3 delicious meals a day. As it is now the low season because we are still in the monsoon there are only guests in two of the houses – Anna’s and her daughter’s – which are opposite each other. Thomas is currently building his own house on the same plot of land. When I arrive there are 2 german couples and 4 french people staying.

I go for an evening walk with Thomas and the French tourists.  We pass the local church, which is preparing for the feast of St Joseph this coming Sunday. The service is being broadcast through a tannoy and can be heard across the fields and canals. Joseph says the Indian people like to do things in excess - big, bright and loud.

St Joseph’s Church

The local school takes children from 5-16 and is where Thomas and his brother and sister went to school. The school is run by the government, aided by the catholic church and the curriculum is in the local language of Malayalam. Other government schools teach all lessons in English and there are also private fee-paying schools. Kerala is very progressive and every village has a school. The state has the highest literacy rate in India.

We walk through the rice fields which are lower than the canals.  A big field belongs to 75 families. 70 years a go there was still a feudal system here, with a landlord owning all the land and the people worked for him. Since then land reform has divided the land up and given it to the people. The small oases of trees within the fields are higher land where 2-3 families live. There are paths through the rice to get to the homes. Each home also has a dug-out canoe for use when the rice fields are flooded either deliberately twice a year between rice crops or due to flooding if a dyke breaks.

Rice fields with small islands

Because all the land is cultivated with rice, cows are usually kept in barns or sheds, or tethered by houses. The locals cut grass to feed the cattle from the edges of the paths with hand sickles. Between crops the cattle are allowed into the fields and Joseph says they dance for joy!

Cows in a shed

At the end of the path we come out on the canal again. Joseph’s canoe is waiting for us in the dusk and two boatmen are ready to paddle us back. We climb in and Joseph stands in the front of the canoe and paddles occasionally.

Joseph in the canoe

Me in the canoe – big grin!

It gets dark quickly and the rain starts heavily. We all put up umbrellas. Joseph starts singing a folk song in Malayalam and keeping the rhythm by banging the handle of the paddle against and the floor of the boat. The paddlers at the back sing the response and I join in as best I can. It is very atmospheric. Vicky would love it!

Singing in the rain

We have dinner together and afterwards  Thomas produces a bottle of toddy for us to try if we wish. This is local alcohol made by tapping coconut palms and fermented by natural yeast. If it is drunk straight away it is sweet and not very strong. Later in the day, as the sugar turns to alcohol, it becomes less sweet and stronger. It is a milky colour and doesn’t taste particularly pleasant. It’s a bit like drinking bath water. He talks about the big social problems in Kerala which contribute to one of the highest suicide rates in India. Alcoholism is a contributing factor and also pressures to achieve and acquire material things are eroding the spiritual and community life.

The next day I take walk by myself along the edge of the island and cut back along a smaller canal that has very few houses on it.  Almost the whole time I can hear loud music being broadcast from the church. For me the constant sound detracted from the beauty of the place; but I understand that I am only 1 tourist and the festival is the highlight of the church calendar for the locals.

Thomas says that almost all of the local people are friendly to tourists, as they benefit directly and indirectly from tourism. He asks me not to give anything to the children. In the early days of the houseboat industry, tourists gave pens and sweets to local children, thinking that they were helping. However there is no need for this type of charity as families are able to provide everything their children need and this has encouraged children to beg. Most people smile and say hello as I wander around. A few older people just look straight at me with no acknowledgement. I pass 2 boys on a boat jetty; they snigger; say hello, then ‘Pen?’

Main canal bank

Smaller canal

Goats on the path

hibiscus

Because all the land is reclaimed there is a need to carry out remedial work to the banks from time to time, otherwise all the land would eventually slide into the water. Here you can see that the bank has been raised recently with orange-coloured sand and grit.

Raising the bank

In the evening there are a few fireworks s part of the church festival celebrations. The church is decorated with coloured electric lights. The music is of course being broadcast. Several stalls have been set up in the church grounds. They are selling packets of snacks, toys and trinketty jewellery. The girls each get a balloon on a string, a packet of crisps, bangles and a hair band.

The next day I take public ferry across the middle of the island. In the middle is a large lake.

Lake

3 teenage girls sit behind me giggling. They are studying agriculture and start to tell me about the paddy fields. I catch about 1 word in 5, but smiling and nodding is sufficient and they seem delighted.

Girls on the ferry

I believe the church festival is due to reach its climax tonight and tomorrow. I decide it’s time to leave the beautiful Backwaters and make arrangements to head down the coast to Varkalla.

I say goodbye to Thamas`and his family and take the little canoe ferry across the canal to pick up a rickshaw to take me back to Alleppey.

Thomas`and family

crossing the canal

Ferry from Alleppey to Chennamkary

I waited in a shelter at the public boat jetty for the ferry from Alleppey to Chennamkary. Other passengers sat and waited patiently for their boats – most doing nothing except sit; one man read a magazine. My ferry came in and the in-coming passengers got off. 2 boatmen turned the ferry round. One stood on the jetty and held a rope at the back of the boat and the other was at the front and used a long bamboo pole to push the boat around.  The boatmen were the first people I have seen with some sort of rain wear (other than an umbrella). One wore a light-weight waterproof jacket and trousers and the other a waterproof cap with a peak.

Passengers started to get on.  From the jetty there was a step down of about 2’ to a lower narrow sill on the jetty side. Then it was a step across the gap between the jetty and the boat, stepping up onto the wooden sill of the boat and down 2 steps into the body of the boat. There was no-one to assist. As the passengers got on the men sat at the front and the women at the back. A group of 3 women stood on the jetty; two older and one young woman. One of the older women was carrying a very tiny baby, wrapped in a fleece blanket with a hood. She called to a woman who was already seated inside the boat, who came to the boat doorway and reached out to take the baby in her arms. Then the 3 women climbed aboard, the older two helping the younger, who winced as she stretched to step down. Once on board the baby was swapped back. Next came two women, the younger was heavily pregnant and the older also helped her down from the jetty and into the boat. Inside the boat the atmosphere was of quiet, patient waiting, the occasional murmur of subdued conversation. Some women had shopping with them. One had a box with a new electric ceiling fan inside, with ‘cool air everywhere’ written on the outside; another had some shiny metal cooking pots and others had bags of vegetables. A man wandered through the boat trying to sell some sort of food from a bag – no takers.

As the boat filled up and all the seats were taken women started to sit on the inside step and stand in the aisles. The level of conversation rose. A woman sitting on the step by my feet engaged the woman next to me in conversation by touching her knee and re-touching her to make her point and make sure she was paying attention.  A group of teenagers in smart school uniform got on, then off, then on, off and finally on.

After half an hour the boat driver and conductor got on in their khaki uniforms. The driver took his seat at the side of the boat about half way back and next to the engine, which was in a fenced-off pit in the middle of the boat. He started the engine and spat over the side. Someone rang a bell and we were off.  The driver couldn’t possibly see out of the front of the boat and I realised he wasn’t steering – just operating the speed and forward/backwards direction of the boat.  Perhaps other boats just got out of the way! Someone else must have been steering from somewhere else. I hoped so.

We’re off

We came out of the small canal into the main waterway, stopping at various small jetties on the way for people to get on and off.

Passengers getting off at a jetty

The ticket collector came round. My fare was 7 ruppees (about 10p) for the 10km/hour and a half journey. We continued to zigzag our way across canals and wider stretches of water, dropping people off on both sides. We passed other ferries, houseboats and smaller craft.

Views from the ferry

I was looking out for the church as the landmark for my destination. I needn’t have worried; the ticket collector the driver and both boatmen made sure I knew my stop was imminent. As I got off and turned to wave goodbye to the people on the ferry I noticed that there was a wheelhouse on to of the boat, so someone had been steering after all.

Leaving the jetty I turned right along the path, as per my instructions, walking along a narrow muddy path between small houses and the edge of the water. After 5 minutes walk I arrived at Green Palms and was greeted by Anna who had a delicious home-made lunch waiting for me of tomato curry, lentil and spinach curry, ginger pickle, coconut paste, mackerel and rice followed by fresh pineapple. I think I have truly arrived in heaven!

Anna's house

lunch

The last 4 places I have stayed in have been called, ‘Green View’, ‘Green View’, ‘Green Palms’ and ‘Palmy Residency’. There are a couple of themes going on here.  It’s like one of those word association games – get from ‘green’ to ‘palms’ in no more than 4. I guess my next place might be called ‘Palm View’.

The Backwaters

Kerala is famous for its Backwaters and many tourists  - both Indian and foreign - come here for this reason. It is a vast area of inland waterways and reclaimed land which run parallel to the Arabian sea for 150km. They were formed over a 1000 year period from an original delta of a river that begins in the Western Ghats. The first setters built up the higher land to live on, realising that the soil was very fertile for farming. Gradually the network of interlinked higher land, dykes and waterways extended and the land behind the dykes was reclaimed for cultivation. Nowadays the people live on the narrow banks of the canals, which is the highest land. Behind the banks are vast lower-lying rice fields, irrigated from the canals, or with excess water pumped out into the canals depending on the requirement for watering the crop. In times of flood not only can the houses be washed away, but the rice crop can also be destroyed if the dykes break.

I took a canoe trip with Shane, a tourist from Ireland.

Me and Shane on the canoe

Raju was our boatman. We sat right t the back with his legs tucked under him and a single paddle.

Raju, the boatman

He paddled us out of the small canal and across the main waterway into a larger canal. We passed many houseboats, ferries and various smaller boats which were transporting people, goods or crops. The waterways are beautiful. The banks have dense vegetation of banana and coconut palms. Occasionally the waterway opened up into larger stretches of water.

views from the canoe

house on the bank

 house on the bank

small boat carrying grass to feed cattle

flowers by a house

house boat

The people in the house boats took pictures of us in our small canoe and we took pictures of them. The houseboat trade is the major form of tourism in the area. The boats are converted from the original spice boats that plied these waters. The construction on the deck is of bamboo. Originally they would have been punted along the waterways and been closed in with a couple of side openings for loading and unloading. Nowadays they can be very grand affairs with several bedrooms, balconies and air conditioning. The houseboat industry is controversial. On the one hand it brings much-needed currency to the region, but on the other the pollution caused by the boats is threatening the natural environment. Fish stocks and birdlife is diminishing. The lives of the people who live on the banks are also impacted. The canal water is vastly important to their lives. Most of the houses on the banks have an access point to the canal with wide concrete steps going down into the water. These people use the water to wash themselves, their hair, their clothes, their cooking utensils, clean their teeth and prepare food for cooking such as de-scaling and washing fish. An additional problem is the added erosion of the banks caused by the increased traffic by these big boats.

We passed a place where men were building boats.

Boat yard

We paddled into a tiny canal no more than a couple of meters wide. A woman came out of her house and stepped into the water fully-clothed. She started to lather herself with soap on the exposed skin of her tummy and arms. Then she submerged herself fully and ran the water through her long hair. When she came up she twisted her hair and tied it in a knot at the back of her head. I couldn’t help thinking that their lives are being lived so publically and it seemed voyeuristic to be paddling through their lives. If it were me I think I would feel like an animal in a zoo, or an exhibit in a theme park.

little canal

woman washing her hair

washing clothes

On one bank of the canal there was a small school and the children were just coming out at the end of the day. They gathered with parents on the boat jetty and a small boat with a motor came alongside to take them home.

School children waiting for the 'bus'

Boat to take them home

We stopped at a small café for a cup of tea and Raju showed us the rice fields on the other side of the bank.

Rice fields

On the journey back we saw several kingfishers. There are little ones that are strikingly blue, like we get at home and bigger ones that are not so colourful.

Some men were cutting banana leaves. Raju explained that there was to be a big wedding the next day and they are gathering leaves for the traditional wedding meal eaten off a banana leaf platter

Cutting banana leaves

It started to rain and Ragu tucked the handle of an umbrella under his arm as he continued to paddle. Shane and I took turns paddling from the front. We got soaking wet, but it was warm and rather nice to be on the water in the downpour.

As the rain stopped Raju called to us and pointed out something in the sky. We could see what we thought were big black birds flying quite high above the water. They were about the size of big rooks, or seagulls. But he seemed to be saying, ‘Bats’. Surely not! But as they flew over the shape of their wings was unmistakeably bat-like.