In Kumily in the Cardamom Hills the sky was overcast at 7 in the morning of the 31st, but the sky soon cleared for another sunny day. I ate breakfast in a rooftop restaurant and the caught a bus just before noon heading west through the hills to Kottayam, 65 miles away in the lowlands. The bus descended and crossed the almost dry Periyar River before ascending again. We passed tea and coffee and cardamom, and on one tea covered hillside I noticed pepper vines growing on all the tree trunks among the tea bushes. Our route west took us up and down before making a long descent, dropping maybe 2000 feet or more, through a wide, long valley with hazy views. The sky was getting cloudier and the air hotter as we descended.
In the lowlands the terrain was still rolling, with lots of rubber plantations and much other greenery, plus lots of towns. We reached Kottayam, a town of about 180,000 that is a major rubber and spice center, after about three and a half hours. It was hot. I found a hotel and got a very hot room.
About 4 I took a bus about seven miles north to the town of Ettumanur, a half hour away. We passed quite a few churches along the way, mostly new looking and big. Many of them had posters of a white bearded, black clad Syrian Patriarch that I had read had died in a Berlin hospital recently.
In Ettumanur I walked to the Mahadeva Temple, which opened at 5. The temple has two square walled enclosures centering on a round, wooden sanctuary. To go beyond the second gate you have to take your shirt off, so I did so along with all the Keralan men. The women enter fully clothed. Many of the devotees were carrying oil offerings to pour into lamps, so the ground was particularly oily. My bare feet were soon black on the bottoms. It was hot inside, though with a welcome breeze if you stood opposite the entrance gate. People looked at me curiously but were friendly as I looked over the intricate wooden carvings of figures, some of which were painted, on the outside of the small round, wooden sanctuary. The figures include gods, men and women, and a frieze of lions and elephants fighting each other. The temple is thought to date from the 16th century. There is a decorated Shiva lingam in the center of the sanctuary.
Near the entrance gate of the outer wall are a couple of wall murals, one of Shiva dancing as Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance. Another depicts a reclining god, but I neglected to check if it was Shiva or someone else. I caught a bus back to Kottayam about 6 and spent a hot night in my stuffy hotel room, quite a change from the cool nights in Kumily and even chillier nights in Munnar. When I went to bed soon after 10, my thermometer registered 90 degrees in my room.
The next morning when I got up at 7 the thermometer had plunged all the way down to 88 degrees. I had slept well, though, under a strong fan. I had breakfast at my hotel and then about 9 took a bus west to the village of Kumarakom and then beyond it a couple of miles to a bird sanctuary on the shores of Lake Vembanad, the lake I had first seen taking the ferry from Ernakulam to Fort Cochin. The bird sanctuary is about ten miles from Kottayam, a half hour trip through green countryside.
I spent about three and a half hours in the sanctuary, three of them walking along a path through an old rubber plantation, with the trees still bearing scars. I had hoped to get there earlier in the morning, but slept late in the heat. Narrow, stagnant canals usually paralleled the path. The more than a mile long path in places passed along some wider canals with canoes tied to the shores and also along the wide Kavanar River, with quite a bit of boat traffic. The air was hot and still among the old rubber trees and other vegetation. I heard some screeching and wondered if the noise was from chicks begging for food. This is the breeding season for cormorants and egrets, but hatching isn't until later. Finally I spotted what was making the noise, fruit bats. I spotted one hanging upside down in a tree and then saw others.
I walked past the trees with bats and reached the river, where I watched a woman cutting up fish on the opposite bank. I saw some other villagers on the other side of the river, and houses. Boats came by, including the kettu vallam, tourist boats modeled after old rice barges that used to ply the waterways of this part of Kerala. They have black hulls made of oiled jackfruit wood and typically have palm thatched compartments on top. They are big boats, 50 feet long or longer. Now they are outfitted for tourists with air conditioning and cost $100 or considerabley more a night. I enjoyed the trail, despite the litter and seeing no birds. Eventually, I reached the lake, with a sign indicating Kochi (Cochin) was 48 kilometers, about 30 miles, away. There was a very nice cool breeze off the lake. I continued on the path away from the lake and passed a couple of sunlit open areas above weed choked canals where there were dragonflies in abundance.
I reached the end of the path and turned back, stopping at a 20 foot high viewing tower nearby. I climbed it and had an excellent view of maybe a hundred egrets on the tops of trees. Some were in the air bringing bits of material for nest building. They would land next to their mates and the two of them would arrange the new addition to the nest. Some of the egrets were ruffling their feathers into a sort of spiky look, which I suppose is some sort of breeding behavior. Among the egrets were a few herons, and beyond, in higher trees and in the sky above the trees, painted storks. In another section of tall trees beyond the egrets were hundreds, probably thousands, of bats hanging from the branches. I was told 5000 roost here. The tower was made of metal and enclosed on three sides, so it was hot inside. Nonetheless, I think I spent a half hour or so up there.
Walking back, I spotted two crows eating something on the path in front of me. One flew away at my approach, but the other did not. I stopped to watch and wondered what it was eating. Eventually, I approached and the crow flew off. It had been eating a baby fruit bat. Its head, wings and claws were still intact, but its rib cage was exposed, showing what was left of red meat.
Butterflies fluttered along the path. At one point I stopped to watch one and it fluttered up and down the path, passing within a foot of me several times, as if it was either oblivious of me or checking me out. I came across the hordes of dragonflies again and saw more bats in the trees on the way back. At the headquarters building I checked out the photos and map and then watched a film about the sanctuary.
I took the bus heading back to Kottayam but got off a couple of miles before the center and walked to the whitewashed Cheria Palli, which means "Small Church." A friendly middle aged man showed me around inside the not so small church, built, he said, in 1579. The walls and ceiling around the altar are covered with 16th century murals painted with vegetable dyes. He also showed me stone cups for oil lamps on the wall outside and Hindu and Muslim influences on the architecture of the church. A large oil lamp stand, with many cups for oil and wicks, stood in the church, as they often do in Hindu temples. He told me this was a Syrian Orthodox Church, one of over a thousand in the area. He said there is a also Syrian Jacobite Church, which is the one whose Syrian patriarch just died. There seem to be quite a few denominations of churches in Kerala. The biggest, I think, is the Catholic Church, dating from the arrival of the Portuguese. There is also the Anglican Church of South India, dating from British times. I've also seen Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Assembly of God churches, plus perhaps some others.
The friendly guy at Cheria Palli directed me to the nearby Vallia Palli, which means "Big Church," but didn't seem that much larger than the Cheria Palli. Set at the edge of a hill with views down to the west, it, too, was whitewashed. This church dates from 1550. Set into the walls on either side of the altar are two stone plaques with crosses carved onto them. One of my guidebooks says they are 8th century Nestorian crosses, while a brochure at the church itself called them Persian crosses. One is original, brought from a much earlier church, while one is a copy. The original one is thought to be the oldest Christian artifact in India. Both have inscriptions in Pahalavi, the official language of the Sassanian Dynasty in Persia, while one also contains an inscription in Syriac. The brochure traced the origins of the church to the migration to India of 400 persons, along with a bishop, priests and deacons, from Jerusalem and nearby places in 345 A.D. The walls around the stone plaques were painted with colorful figures.
I took an auto rickshaw back to my hotel and hurriedly packed to get to the jetty for the scheduled 3:30 ferry through the backwaters to Alleppey, southwest of Kottayam. The area from Cochin to the north to Kollam in the south is laced with interconnected lakes, rivers, canals, and other waterways, called the backwaters. I've read that for most of the year the water is salty, from the ocean, but during the monsoon the tremendous flow of rainwater coming down from the Cardamom Hills flushes out the salt water for a few months. I had taken this ferry in 1979 and enjoyed the slow, interesting trip on the water. But I found out the ferry no longer leaves from Kottayam but from a spot about six miles from town on account of new bridge construction that the ferry cannot pass. So I ended taking an auto rickshaw for 160 rupees to the departure site in order to take the ferry to Alleppey, the fare of which is only 18 rupees. The boat was empty when I arrived at 3:30 and had only five passengers when we left at 4. There are seats for about a hundred people in the wooden boat. We chugged west down a narrow canal for about 15 minutes before entering a wider canal. The bridge construction had cut off the most interesting part of the trip, past houses and everyday activity along the narrower canal. Still, I enjoyed the trip. A sign as we entered the larger canal said it was only 16 kilometers (10 miles) to Alleppey.
The canals ran fairly straight but we made several turns, generally heading southwest. There were a few houses, some desiccated rice fields, and quite a few birds to be seen. Water seemed to be almost everywhere. There were also lots of those rice barges turned tourist boats, usually with tourists lounging on the front open, but covered, decks. Some of the boats looked very fancy. Eventually, we reached the southern end of Vembanad Lake and crossed it to the southwest, entering another canal and then heading south to Alleppey. Just before reaching Alleppey we passed hundreds of the rice barge turned tourist boats tied up to the shores. I have read that there are 400 to 500 of them in Alleppey, and that was several years ago. Reaching Alleppey just after 6, the ferry cruised up a narrow canal bordered by trees and buildings and docked in the town center. I found a good hotel nearby. Cheap hotels certainly are better in the south of India than in the north. Alleppey (now officially named Aleppuzha) is a big city, with almost 300,000 people, but the old center near the canal seems seems more like the center of a small town. The town was hot and humid. My thermometer indicated 90 degrees in my room at bedtime, but I again slept well under a good fan.
The next morning was hot, too. My room was 86 degrees, but it was cooler outside. I left for a walk before 7, first heading to the jetty to see about ferry boat schedules and then through narrow lanes past residences in the neighborhood near my hotel. I was sweating before 8. After breakfast I again walked to the ferry jetty and got some more reliable ferry information. After lunch I departed on the crowded 1 p.m. ferry headed east to the town of Changanassery. Twenty minutes later it was half full as many passengers got off at spots just outside of Alleppey. The narrow channels near the town passed homes and were very interesting, but eventually we reached the wider channels, passing dry and sometimes even burnt rice fields. We skirted the southeast corner of Vembanad Lake and then headed southeast to Changanassery and eventually into narrower, palm fringed channels, passing through several villages. There are quite a few churches and temples along the way, but I saw no mosques.
Lots of birds, egrets and herons and cormorants, were to be seen, along with a couple of bright blue kingfishers. At one point an enormous number of ducks were huddled together, being herded, (or flocked?) by two boys standing upright in little canoes and using poles to keep the ducks together. There were hundreds and maybe more than a thousand ducks in that mass.
Nearing Changanassery the channel became choked with vegetation, with pretty lavender flowers scattered on top of the mass of green vegetation. The ferry plowed right on through, reaching the Changanassery dock after a three hour trip from Alleppey. The channel ended there, in a wide, completely vegetation choked basin with old warehouses on one side. Changanassery's old downtown is situated next to the boat basin, with lots of crumbling old wooden buildings. I enjoyed looking around, stopping at a little shop that sold bundles of rope made from coir, shredded coconut husks. An open air market under a roof sold all sorts of dried fish, most preserved in salt. Another shop had dozens of stalks of green and yellow bananas either stacked up or hanging from the eaves. People were friendly and curious. I got the impression not too many tourists make it there.
I walked to the bus station somewhat less than a mile away from the ferry terminal and on the way the town turned into the typically ugly Indian town. I took a bus back to Alleppey, about an hour's ride, passing alongside and over canals along the way. Back in Alleppey I walked to a pedestrian bridge over the main canal, a little east of the ferry dock, and watched the boats come and go until it got dark about 7. There were quite a few ferries, some very full of people heading home from work in town. Herons flew over the canal until after sunset, and a crescent moon showed up in the western sky.
The next morning about 7 I walked back to the bridge to watch the ferries and birds. Sunrise is a little after 6:30 and by 7:30 the sun had cleared the clouds to the east, making it hot on the bridge. I left and again walked through the neighborhood near my hotel and then had breakfast.
At 9:30 I left Alleppey on a bus headed south to Kollam, 50 miles away. The backwaters continue all the way to Kollam and while public ferries no longer travel the route, a tourist ferry does, taking eight hours. However, now in the tourist low season it does so only every other day and I didn't want to spend another day in Alleppey. The bus trip took a little more than two hours, with roadside development and towns all along the way. We crossed waterways several times and at one time could see the ocean beyond a gleaming white sand bar at the end of a canal.
Kollam was formerly know as Quilon and has about 400,000 people. At one time it was a great port, trading with China and Arabia and elsewhere. I checked into a hotel and searched for a place to eat in the fiercely hot midday sun. The newspaper the next day reported that that day's high was 99 degrees. After lunch I went to the tourist office on Astamudi Lake at the northern edge of town, where the tourist ferry from Alleppey docks. One of my guidebooks had recommended their backwater canoe trips. Nobody else showed up for the trip, so I had to pay 1000 rupees, about $16-17, rather than 500 rupees, but the trip was very good. An auto rickshaw drove me about 15 miles to Munroe Island in Astamudi Lake. We made a ferry crossing, on a ferry just large enough to carry two cars and three auto rickshaws, along with motorcycles and people, to an island next to Munroe Island and then crossed over to Munroe Island by a short bridge. The islands were very green, with shorelines lined with coconut palms. It took us more than an hour to get to Munroe Island from Kollam.
Once there, another guy took me through narrow waterways on the island by canoe for about two hours. At times the canals were just barely wide enough for the wooden canoe, which he poled. The canoe was just high enough to fit under the sometimes very low cement bridges we had to pass under. We both had to sit very low beneath the gunwales of the canoe not to hit our heads. We passed simple homes with women cleaning clothes or pots and pans or doing other chores. An old man led his cow, taking it somewhere. There were quite a few ducks here and there, swimming away from us and eventually climbing ashore when we got too close. In the skies and on the trees were herons and egrets and other birds, including brahminy kites, with white heads and looking a little like bald eagles. Everything along the banks was very green, a very pretty journey. The boatman pointed out cashews growing on a small tree along the bank. He also pointed out tapioca plants and vanilla vines. Coconut palms were everywhere.
One area was full of ponds where tiger prawns are raised. Typically, the ponds are covered with nets to keep birds from eating the prawns, but one pond had a rope across it with all sorts of different plastic bottles tied along the rope. I asked why and the boatman told a little girl to pull the rope. There were rocks in the bottles that rattled, another way to keep away the birds. The little girl was stationed at one end of the rope to watch for birds.
After the canoe trip, we headed back to Kollam, arriving about 6:30. The restaurant where I ate that evening had a cricket match on, with most commercials political advertising for the Congress and BJP parties. I again slept in a hot hotel room, but again with a good fan.
In the lowlands the terrain was still rolling, with lots of rubber plantations and much other greenery, plus lots of towns. We reached Kottayam, a town of about 180,000 that is a major rubber and spice center, after about three and a half hours. It was hot. I found a hotel and got a very hot room.
About 4 I took a bus about seven miles north to the town of Ettumanur, a half hour away. We passed quite a few churches along the way, mostly new looking and big. Many of them had posters of a white bearded, black clad Syrian Patriarch that I had read had died in a Berlin hospital recently.
In Ettumanur I walked to the Mahadeva Temple, which opened at 5. The temple has two square walled enclosures centering on a round, wooden sanctuary. To go beyond the second gate you have to take your shirt off, so I did so along with all the Keralan men. The women enter fully clothed. Many of the devotees were carrying oil offerings to pour into lamps, so the ground was particularly oily. My bare feet were soon black on the bottoms. It was hot inside, though with a welcome breeze if you stood opposite the entrance gate. People looked at me curiously but were friendly as I looked over the intricate wooden carvings of figures, some of which were painted, on the outside of the small round, wooden sanctuary. The figures include gods, men and women, and a frieze of lions and elephants fighting each other. The temple is thought to date from the 16th century. There is a decorated Shiva lingam in the center of the sanctuary.
Near the entrance gate of the outer wall are a couple of wall murals, one of Shiva dancing as Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance. Another depicts a reclining god, but I neglected to check if it was Shiva or someone else. I caught a bus back to Kottayam about 6 and spent a hot night in my stuffy hotel room, quite a change from the cool nights in Kumily and even chillier nights in Munnar. When I went to bed soon after 10, my thermometer registered 90 degrees in my room.
The next morning when I got up at 7 the thermometer had plunged all the way down to 88 degrees. I had slept well, though, under a strong fan. I had breakfast at my hotel and then about 9 took a bus west to the village of Kumarakom and then beyond it a couple of miles to a bird sanctuary on the shores of Lake Vembanad, the lake I had first seen taking the ferry from Ernakulam to Fort Cochin. The bird sanctuary is about ten miles from Kottayam, a half hour trip through green countryside.
I spent about three and a half hours in the sanctuary, three of them walking along a path through an old rubber plantation, with the trees still bearing scars. I had hoped to get there earlier in the morning, but slept late in the heat. Narrow, stagnant canals usually paralleled the path. The more than a mile long path in places passed along some wider canals with canoes tied to the shores and also along the wide Kavanar River, with quite a bit of boat traffic. The air was hot and still among the old rubber trees and other vegetation. I heard some screeching and wondered if the noise was from chicks begging for food. This is the breeding season for cormorants and egrets, but hatching isn't until later. Finally I spotted what was making the noise, fruit bats. I spotted one hanging upside down in a tree and then saw others.
I walked past the trees with bats and reached the river, where I watched a woman cutting up fish on the opposite bank. I saw some other villagers on the other side of the river, and houses. Boats came by, including the kettu vallam, tourist boats modeled after old rice barges that used to ply the waterways of this part of Kerala. They have black hulls made of oiled jackfruit wood and typically have palm thatched compartments on top. They are big boats, 50 feet long or longer. Now they are outfitted for tourists with air conditioning and cost $100 or considerabley more a night. I enjoyed the trail, despite the litter and seeing no birds. Eventually, I reached the lake, with a sign indicating Kochi (Cochin) was 48 kilometers, about 30 miles, away. There was a very nice cool breeze off the lake. I continued on the path away from the lake and passed a couple of sunlit open areas above weed choked canals where there were dragonflies in abundance.
I reached the end of the path and turned back, stopping at a 20 foot high viewing tower nearby. I climbed it and had an excellent view of maybe a hundred egrets on the tops of trees. Some were in the air bringing bits of material for nest building. They would land next to their mates and the two of them would arrange the new addition to the nest. Some of the egrets were ruffling their feathers into a sort of spiky look, which I suppose is some sort of breeding behavior. Among the egrets were a few herons, and beyond, in higher trees and in the sky above the trees, painted storks. In another section of tall trees beyond the egrets were hundreds, probably thousands, of bats hanging from the branches. I was told 5000 roost here. The tower was made of metal and enclosed on three sides, so it was hot inside. Nonetheless, I think I spent a half hour or so up there.
Walking back, I spotted two crows eating something on the path in front of me. One flew away at my approach, but the other did not. I stopped to watch and wondered what it was eating. Eventually, I approached and the crow flew off. It had been eating a baby fruit bat. Its head, wings and claws were still intact, but its rib cage was exposed, showing what was left of red meat.
Butterflies fluttered along the path. At one point I stopped to watch one and it fluttered up and down the path, passing within a foot of me several times, as if it was either oblivious of me or checking me out. I came across the hordes of dragonflies again and saw more bats in the trees on the way back. At the headquarters building I checked out the photos and map and then watched a film about the sanctuary.
I took the bus heading back to Kottayam but got off a couple of miles before the center and walked to the whitewashed Cheria Palli, which means "Small Church." A friendly middle aged man showed me around inside the not so small church, built, he said, in 1579. The walls and ceiling around the altar are covered with 16th century murals painted with vegetable dyes. He also showed me stone cups for oil lamps on the wall outside and Hindu and Muslim influences on the architecture of the church. A large oil lamp stand, with many cups for oil and wicks, stood in the church, as they often do in Hindu temples. He told me this was a Syrian Orthodox Church, one of over a thousand in the area. He said there is a also Syrian Jacobite Church, which is the one whose Syrian patriarch just died. There seem to be quite a few denominations of churches in Kerala. The biggest, I think, is the Catholic Church, dating from the arrival of the Portuguese. There is also the Anglican Church of South India, dating from British times. I've also seen Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Assembly of God churches, plus perhaps some others.
The friendly guy at Cheria Palli directed me to the nearby Vallia Palli, which means "Big Church," but didn't seem that much larger than the Cheria Palli. Set at the edge of a hill with views down to the west, it, too, was whitewashed. This church dates from 1550. Set into the walls on either side of the altar are two stone plaques with crosses carved onto them. One of my guidebooks says they are 8th century Nestorian crosses, while a brochure at the church itself called them Persian crosses. One is original, brought from a much earlier church, while one is a copy. The original one is thought to be the oldest Christian artifact in India. Both have inscriptions in Pahalavi, the official language of the Sassanian Dynasty in Persia, while one also contains an inscription in Syriac. The brochure traced the origins of the church to the migration to India of 400 persons, along with a bishop, priests and deacons, from Jerusalem and nearby places in 345 A.D. The walls around the stone plaques were painted with colorful figures.
I took an auto rickshaw back to my hotel and hurriedly packed to get to the jetty for the scheduled 3:30 ferry through the backwaters to Alleppey, southwest of Kottayam. The area from Cochin to the north to Kollam in the south is laced with interconnected lakes, rivers, canals, and other waterways, called the backwaters. I've read that for most of the year the water is salty, from the ocean, but during the monsoon the tremendous flow of rainwater coming down from the Cardamom Hills flushes out the salt water for a few months. I had taken this ferry in 1979 and enjoyed the slow, interesting trip on the water. But I found out the ferry no longer leaves from Kottayam but from a spot about six miles from town on account of new bridge construction that the ferry cannot pass. So I ended taking an auto rickshaw for 160 rupees to the departure site in order to take the ferry to Alleppey, the fare of which is only 18 rupees. The boat was empty when I arrived at 3:30 and had only five passengers when we left at 4. There are seats for about a hundred people in the wooden boat. We chugged west down a narrow canal for about 15 minutes before entering a wider canal. The bridge construction had cut off the most interesting part of the trip, past houses and everyday activity along the narrower canal. Still, I enjoyed the trip. A sign as we entered the larger canal said it was only 16 kilometers (10 miles) to Alleppey.
The canals ran fairly straight but we made several turns, generally heading southwest. There were a few houses, some desiccated rice fields, and quite a few birds to be seen. Water seemed to be almost everywhere. There were also lots of those rice barges turned tourist boats, usually with tourists lounging on the front open, but covered, decks. Some of the boats looked very fancy. Eventually, we reached the southern end of Vembanad Lake and crossed it to the southwest, entering another canal and then heading south to Alleppey. Just before reaching Alleppey we passed hundreds of the rice barge turned tourist boats tied up to the shores. I have read that there are 400 to 500 of them in Alleppey, and that was several years ago. Reaching Alleppey just after 6, the ferry cruised up a narrow canal bordered by trees and buildings and docked in the town center. I found a good hotel nearby. Cheap hotels certainly are better in the south of India than in the north. Alleppey (now officially named Aleppuzha) is a big city, with almost 300,000 people, but the old center near the canal seems seems more like the center of a small town. The town was hot and humid. My thermometer indicated 90 degrees in my room at bedtime, but I again slept well under a good fan.
The next morning was hot, too. My room was 86 degrees, but it was cooler outside. I left for a walk before 7, first heading to the jetty to see about ferry boat schedules and then through narrow lanes past residences in the neighborhood near my hotel. I was sweating before 8. After breakfast I again walked to the ferry jetty and got some more reliable ferry information. After lunch I departed on the crowded 1 p.m. ferry headed east to the town of Changanassery. Twenty minutes later it was half full as many passengers got off at spots just outside of Alleppey. The narrow channels near the town passed homes and were very interesting, but eventually we reached the wider channels, passing dry and sometimes even burnt rice fields. We skirted the southeast corner of Vembanad Lake and then headed southeast to Changanassery and eventually into narrower, palm fringed channels, passing through several villages. There are quite a few churches and temples along the way, but I saw no mosques.
Lots of birds, egrets and herons and cormorants, were to be seen, along with a couple of bright blue kingfishers. At one point an enormous number of ducks were huddled together, being herded, (or flocked?) by two boys standing upright in little canoes and using poles to keep the ducks together. There were hundreds and maybe more than a thousand ducks in that mass.
Nearing Changanassery the channel became choked with vegetation, with pretty lavender flowers scattered on top of the mass of green vegetation. The ferry plowed right on through, reaching the Changanassery dock after a three hour trip from Alleppey. The channel ended there, in a wide, completely vegetation choked basin with old warehouses on one side. Changanassery's old downtown is situated next to the boat basin, with lots of crumbling old wooden buildings. I enjoyed looking around, stopping at a little shop that sold bundles of rope made from coir, shredded coconut husks. An open air market under a roof sold all sorts of dried fish, most preserved in salt. Another shop had dozens of stalks of green and yellow bananas either stacked up or hanging from the eaves. People were friendly and curious. I got the impression not too many tourists make it there.
I walked to the bus station somewhat less than a mile away from the ferry terminal and on the way the town turned into the typically ugly Indian town. I took a bus back to Alleppey, about an hour's ride, passing alongside and over canals along the way. Back in Alleppey I walked to a pedestrian bridge over the main canal, a little east of the ferry dock, and watched the boats come and go until it got dark about 7. There were quite a few ferries, some very full of people heading home from work in town. Herons flew over the canal until after sunset, and a crescent moon showed up in the western sky.
The next morning about 7 I walked back to the bridge to watch the ferries and birds. Sunrise is a little after 6:30 and by 7:30 the sun had cleared the clouds to the east, making it hot on the bridge. I left and again walked through the neighborhood near my hotel and then had breakfast.
At 9:30 I left Alleppey on a bus headed south to Kollam, 50 miles away. The backwaters continue all the way to Kollam and while public ferries no longer travel the route, a tourist ferry does, taking eight hours. However, now in the tourist low season it does so only every other day and I didn't want to spend another day in Alleppey. The bus trip took a little more than two hours, with roadside development and towns all along the way. We crossed waterways several times and at one time could see the ocean beyond a gleaming white sand bar at the end of a canal.
Kollam was formerly know as Quilon and has about 400,000 people. At one time it was a great port, trading with China and Arabia and elsewhere. I checked into a hotel and searched for a place to eat in the fiercely hot midday sun. The newspaper the next day reported that that day's high was 99 degrees. After lunch I went to the tourist office on Astamudi Lake at the northern edge of town, where the tourist ferry from Alleppey docks. One of my guidebooks had recommended their backwater canoe trips. Nobody else showed up for the trip, so I had to pay 1000 rupees, about $16-17, rather than 500 rupees, but the trip was very good. An auto rickshaw drove me about 15 miles to Munroe Island in Astamudi Lake. We made a ferry crossing, on a ferry just large enough to carry two cars and three auto rickshaws, along with motorcycles and people, to an island next to Munroe Island and then crossed over to Munroe Island by a short bridge. The islands were very green, with shorelines lined with coconut palms. It took us more than an hour to get to Munroe Island from Kollam.
Once there, another guy took me through narrow waterways on the island by canoe for about two hours. At times the canals were just barely wide enough for the wooden canoe, which he poled. The canoe was just high enough to fit under the sometimes very low cement bridges we had to pass under. We both had to sit very low beneath the gunwales of the canoe not to hit our heads. We passed simple homes with women cleaning clothes or pots and pans or doing other chores. An old man led his cow, taking it somewhere. There were quite a few ducks here and there, swimming away from us and eventually climbing ashore when we got too close. In the skies and on the trees were herons and egrets and other birds, including brahminy kites, with white heads and looking a little like bald eagles. Everything along the banks was very green, a very pretty journey. The boatman pointed out cashews growing on a small tree along the bank. He also pointed out tapioca plants and vanilla vines. Coconut palms were everywhere.
One area was full of ponds where tiger prawns are raised. Typically, the ponds are covered with nets to keep birds from eating the prawns, but one pond had a rope across it with all sorts of different plastic bottles tied along the rope. I asked why and the boatman told a little girl to pull the rope. There were rocks in the bottles that rattled, another way to keep away the birds. The little girl was stationed at one end of the rope to watch for birds.
After the canoe trip, we headed back to Kollam, arriving about 6:30. The restaurant where I ate that evening had a cricket match on, with most commercials political advertising for the Congress and BJP parties. I again slept in a hot hotel room, but again with a good fan.
Alleppey is situated in Alappuzha district, Kerala. It is considered as the 6th largest city of Kerala. Tourist across the seas comes here to visit the amazing location. Tourist prefer Resorts in Alleppey near sea, so these resorts preferred by many tourists.
ReplyDeletethanks nice images and good informations by Alleppey restaurant
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to read about your travel experience. :) A not to be missed attractions in Kottayam for nature aficionados is Kumily, while the Juma Masjid attracts devotees in hordes. Also, click here to know about hotels in Kottayam for accommodation.
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