Our drive today was one and a half hours to Alleppy, known as "Venice of the East" (not sure by who), which is on the Vembanad Lake. It is a maze of canals and bridges. We boarded the houseboat, ours were single storey, by going on someone else's boat and going over 2x8 gangplanks until we reached ours (3rd one). Our group had two boats, which had 3 double rooms each, plus a sitting area so we could relax and watch the villages as we sailed by. We had coconut drinks first, then after a while they served us lunch (fish, rice, curried veggies). Then another rest before docking at a village so we could take a walk and have a look around. Ian was invited to steer the boat for a while, he was singing the Gilligan the tune but he didn't crash! It was peaceful, slowly sailing along again until close to dinner time when we docked for the night while the chef made us a dinner of chicken, rice, dal and veggies and a desert. The boats aren't licensed, so we did the usual beer run before boarding and the crew put the drinks on ice for us. The bugs started to come out in the evening so we all retired early to our cabins were the fans and air conditioning had been turned on.
Next morning we were all up early and the crew were ready with tea and coffee while we all waited for a lovely breakfast of omelettes, banana and coconut pancakes, toast and fruit salad. We left the boat about 8 and headed to the airport for our flight to Chennai, on the eastern coast of the tip of India. We had samosas and coffee at the airport for an early lunch. Air India flight of about 1 hour 15 minutes was on time and we checked into the hotel about 2:30. Found out this town only had clouds when cyclone Helen passed through 2 days ago a bit further north.
Catching up on a bit of laundry as we are here for two nights, hope it dries! Meeting at 5:30 to go for a walk and check out the neighbourhood. Went into an Indian 'pub' with the guide - a bit of a dive to say the least : ). We caused a bit of a stir, I guess they don't get many westeners in there, just had the one beer then back to hotel to get ready for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment