Krishna and Radha - a painting we bought in Rajasthan

The Honeymoon Trail Part 3: The Backwaters After the trek it was time to leave the coolness of the mountains and head back for the coast. We stayed at the Coconut Lagoon, a resort on the Keralan backwaters. It is run by the same company and the Spice Village and is at least as nice. As you can't get there by road we took a short boat ride through the backwaters from the company's dock. We went through narrow canals lined with trees, the houses were generally set well back from the water surrounded by green grass. Guests at the hotel stay in small cottages built in a variety of traditional Keralan styles. Ours had very high beds with a stepping block to get into them and the bathroom was in a small outdoor courtyard where shade was provided by a banana tree. The hotel offers quite a few activities for guests but we were feeling rather lazy and just hung around relaxing by the pool. This is where we met a very young couple who were on honeymoon after an arranged marriage. They succeeded in shocking us because as we were both sitting right there in front of them the boy turned to Michael and said: "And what does she do?", meaning me! We both stared at each other unsure of who should respond. I'm not sure how much we shocked them, especially since Mike was talking to the girl directly, asking her all kinds of questions. The following day was Valentine's Day and for the first time in our lives we spent it doing something very romantic, taking an overnight trip through the Keralan backwaters on a Rice Boat. Rice boats are made of wood with a thatched cover, and were once used to bring rice from the fields to the market. Now, the surviving ones have been converted into houseboats for tourists. Our boat was one of the smaller kind for two people with an open living room area, a tiny bedroom and bathroom and a kitchen at the back from whence came regular supplies of delicious food. When Mike saw our beautiful boat, a huge Cheshire cat grin appeared on his face and he began to purr (really!). Then he settled down in his armchair and spent the whole afternoon as we travelled around the back waters reading his book about DNS and BIND. I couldn't believe it! (By the way, for anyone who doesn't know what DNS and BIND are, it has nothing to do with even a kinky kind of romance, and everything to do with the grimy underside of making the world's computer systems tick). Riding through the backwaters is very peaceful and pleasant. You can see endlessly huge rice fields walled off from the main waterways and they are below the level of the canals. The wall of earth around the edge of each field can be broken at certain points when the field needs to be flooded. The walls double as paths around the fields and in a few places they are built wider to accommodate a home. These homes are tiny and usually isolated. Some have neat lines of washing outside, whereas others are falling apart and give the impression of having been abandoned. There were very few people around during the day, occasionally in the distance we could see groups of workers in the fields, and sometimes a woman washing laundry or pots in the canal. Towards the evening things got busier, partly because we were in a more densely inhabited area. Lots of men and boys were in the canal taking their evening baths and others were travelling around in canoes containing goods. At one point many of them were rushing along the path at the side of the waterway towards a very loud noise being broadcasted by loudspeaker. This turned out to be a volleyball match. The waterways are used for washing clothes, pots and people and for transportation. Every household has at least one boat and there are no apparent roads anywhere, you could almost imagine they did not exist. This doesn't mean that an Indian village is ever quiet though. By the time we got away from the noise of the volleyball match we were in the middle of the large lake where we were to spend the night. At one end of the lake there seemed to be a choir practice being broadcasted by loud speaker. In the middle of the lake a group of evangelists were using a motorboat and another loudspeaker as tools to spread the word. Their faith had obviously given them stamina since they continued singing and preaching from five in the afternoon till ten at night. As we waited for our dinner we spent our time watching the other rice boats light up, figuring out how to photograph the gorgeous sunset and trying to discourage the small boy who was going begging from boat to boat in a canoe. Then our lamps were lit and dinner was served. It was completely idyllic. Back to travelogue contents