Idylling on Kerala Backwater

Before I left, whenever I mentioned I was going to India for a holiday, it seemed everyone would say: "Well, you'll be doing a backwater tour, wont you?" I mean you simply can't go to Kerala and NOT do one!

So when I packed my tiny suitcase, I had it firmly fixed in my mind. I was going to spend one day doing a Kerala Backwater tour, half a day traveling, and four days sitting by the pool drinking margaritas. (not so - far too busy for that!) ...So, a bathing suit, sundress x 2, sarong, cute PJs for midnight card games with the girls, and 500ml of Tropical strength Aeroguard, because the words "back" and "water" conjure images of stagnant, slimy, algae infested still waters - the perfect place to catch malaria.

We booked through the hotel on the morning we arrived because we were three little lily-livered ladies petrified of eating village food on some dodgy two-buck cruise, getting hepatitis and then drowning on the way back. So it cost us 17,500 rupees for three. (about $130 each) It could have cost us 3000 each if we'd been smart and/or adventurous.


By the time the cruise came around, we had already grown up a little after our Delboy and Leo-Bob experiences, and were wondering if maybe we should have saved some money and gone through one of the cheeky taxidrivers or mafioso-like spruikers on the beach. However just two seconds into our day tour we were satisfied with our choice - icy cold towels from the boot of the shiny SUV, and when we sat down it was on cool leather, protected from the sticky humidity in it's air-conditioned oasis. Our driver was Veejay, and despite the fact that his name sounds like a five-year-old's name for female anatomy, comparing him with Delboy was like pitting the Queen Mum and Paris Hilton against each other. He was straight out of a colonial historical drama, complete with crisp white linens, a stiff upper lip, and a chauffeur's hat with a peak pointing in the direction of a better life. Needless to say he did not recount his sexual exploits with Europeans for the duration of the journey.

Two hours of swerving, tooting and nausea brought us to Kollam (Quillam), which is just slightly south of lake Ashtamudi, and is the leaving point for most of the day cruises. It is possible to go for longer, but they embark elsewhere. VJ maneuvered the car over what might have been a road or a one-lane arid riverbed, and stopped in a peculiarly abandoned looking area. To my great surprise, at the end of a cracked up concrete ramp were two houseboats that looked exactly like the brochure. One was slightly rattier than the other, and held two rotund and pink faced laughing Brits sucking something out of giant coconuts, and as I made my assumptive move towards that boat to join them I was interrupted and steered towards the pretty one. As we stepped on board we were be-leid with marigolds and jasmine and handed even bigger straw-stuck coconuts, quite unfortunately filled with coconut milk. Before we had time to assess, the boat had departed, and we realised that the three of us had the boat to ourselves. Except of course for Captain, Chef and Sobers (so named because he was a good all-rounder, not because he had a big one the night before) - quite a happy crew to passenger ratio I think.

Chef gave us a tour of the boat - the kitchen (galley for the ship -shape) which smelt better than Leo-Bob's, and had four pans on the go, simmering prawns in sauce, sizzling onions, popping mustard seeds and steaming rice. We all tasted yummy morsels out of the pots at chefs insistence, licking hungrily from the same wooden spoon. Secondly we saw the bedrooms - just in case we would need a "sleep or something..." (Hmmm...Was that another offer?) and finally a toilet - devoid of hand towels, but clean, supplied with ample toilet paper, and even soap - what a relief. I had in my mind that because the boats are so quaint - sheathed as the are in palm matting and tied together with coconut fibers - that I would be supplied with a curtain and a bucket for my ablutions. My brick-sized stash of sanitary wipes could have stayed home...

We were asked if we liked beer, and then told to park it and chill. We reclined three-across in  wicker chairs and watched the captain work, smelt the curries cooking in the galley, and waited an agonizingly long time with our coconuts until we realised the beer had to be picked up.

An hour between the offer of beer and it's arrival is often more than a little too long, but we barely noticed. My imaginations of "backwater" were as incorrect as those of the houseboats, and we first found ourselves drifting out onto the lake. We sailed past tidal fishing nets, and the structures that held them reached like spooky sci-fi preying mantises towards us. We raced other house boats around the buoys made of rough torn polystyrene foam and juice bottles. On the far side tin boats floated in perfect rows of rusty vibrance, begging to be photographed but stuck behind an obscuring layer of sea-mist.

The centre of the lake brought cooling wind to break the humidity and midday sun, and cormorants resting on tiny islands and deadwood, all in rows like armies of scarecrows drying in the sun. Finally the Captain brought us to the other side, which had an Eco-resort and chilled Kingfishers of the gulpable kind.

Soon we launched in the direction of a tributary, past fairytale churches in the jungle, flocks of cranes, and fishermen in dugout canoes. Women heaped wet nets on washing lines, children naked from the waist up running through the grasses to catch a wave from us, and in every direction, coconuts, coconuts, coconuts. We wondered; what would this place look like in the western world? Developed, dredged, drained of colour and devoid of soul possibly? But I recall lovingly the waters of Istanbul and Mallacoota Inlet - maybe I am too harsh. Regardless, they would be different, and I have come all this way to see India - thankfully if has been gloriously laid before me.

We moored in the wilderness and the Captain alighted and disappeared into the jungle without a word. A few minutes later he returned with three perfect banana leaves. Not a second too soon lunch was served upon them, masala prawns, dry-spiced fried kingfish,  onion and cabbage with mustard, dry-fried okra, beans, chicken, coconut sambal, more more more. We ate on the edge of nowhere with swooping eagles and jumping fish for company, and Not for the first time this holiday, we gorged until we could no longer move.

For the return Chef pumped up the music, and we polluted the stunning idyll with the overtuned notes of Aqua, Kylie Minogue and Pseudo Echo. We had drunk enough beer by this stage to start bringing out all our 1990s dance moves, turn the empty beer bottles into microphones, and start the self-portrait session. Quite sad really.

Then we all collapsed on the cushioned benches and watched the return journey horizontally. The earlier wind had cleared the mist over the lake and the colours were even brighter. As the sun went down the fishermen appeared again to haul in nets and check the catch. The young ones stood in their boats and danced to our appalling music as we came past and we felt welcome despite our western hideousness.

And as this is my last India post (for this trip at least), I would say that "welcome" is one of the key words I would use to describe my feelings of this journey and the Kerala area, along with "colour", and "easy". I'd recommend it even for those afraid of the mayhem and poverty they would encounter in India, because here you can see India without it, and this is a country one simply cannot miss in their lifetime. I'll definitely be back for more.