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Today I (Dale) took the Cochin Tranquil Backwater tour. It was to depart at 8:45 am and return at 5:00 pm. With an estimated 2-hour drive each way, a 2-hour boat ride and 1-hour lunch at a nice hotel this was definitely going to be a full day.
The buses were nice enough and the air conditioning worked. The shocks left a little to be desired when going over the many humps and bumps in the road and the driver knew how to drive pretty darn fast on the narrow and busy roads…at times it was pretty exciting, especially when he started driving on the wrong (e.g. right) side of the road. But, thankfully, he didn’t hit anything and we lived to ride buses another day.
Click here for detailed Cochin Day 2 Photo Gallery.
After a restroom stop about ¾ of the way to the lake we boarded the boat which had two levels, the bottom one was noisy and smelled of diesel, the top was covered by some dense, green plastic netting. We had to duck to walk to the cheap and wobbly plastic chairs, but they worked.
The boat proceeded down canals that were 40 feet across and the captain honked the horn at each intersection we approached. The small canals then entered the large lake. There are two large lakes in this area, Lake Alleppey and Lake Punnamad. Every August they have a big boat race, called Chundanvallams in large “Snake Boats”. These boats are huge, each with four helmsmen, 100 rowers and 25 singers who sing Vanchipattu songs throughout the race. Here is a YouTube video of a race (I wasn’t there): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTbyPCyzsBY.
The water was calm, the wind was light and the temperature was approaching 100. We continued down other canals passing homes of varying size and quality, some were nice two story homes with decent yards, others were high-end shacks.
There were many ladies out washing clothes in the river, a few guys soaping up while taking baths, a couple ladies giving their children baths and some kids just having a good time playing. They were oblivious to us although some of the people waved.
There were dirt “sidewalks” on each side of the river and all types of people were walking on them including school kids, workers and some women carrying water jugs. The women were all wearing sarees and most of the men were shirtless with just a cloth wrapped around their waist.
We stopped at a church and cemetery for a brief tour where we witnessed a local man climbing a coconut tree to rescue us some coconuts and then prepare them to drink the milk and eat the moist coconut meat. I sampled it and it tasted like a coconut!
Next, we re-boarded the boat and stopped to tour one of the homes. On the walk to the house we passed a local bar. We could look over the fence and see the shirtless men inside the small, dark room. It wasn’t very nice but I asked if we could go inside. He spoke to the man looking at us from inside and then he waved us in.
Before you knew it there were 20 of us (men and women) inside taking pictures. They didn’t seem to mind at all. There were tables on both sides and four small rooms, each with a table where four men were sitting around drinking their local beer and eating small dishes of food.
The house we toured was so nice that I wondered why we toured it. Two stories, nice kitchen, four decent bedrooms, good construction and connecting bathrooms. The whole deal! The man grew rice and bananas, had two young children (pictures showed they had cell phones) and he was very professional as he toured us around his house. His wife was in the kitchen and was graciously posing for pictures.
Next, the boat took us back through the main lake and to the Lake Palace hotel for a good Indian-style buffet lunch.
After lunch we took another boat ride back to the buses and, after a couple hours we arrived at Fort Kochi to walk along the beach and check out the Chinese fishing nets again. We arrived back at the ship at 5 pm. We had dinner with the Staff Captain and Chief Safety Officer where we met three new couples including an interesting Italian named Val who charmed us with lots of insights into how to see Italy and many other things. It was a good time and a full day.
Cheryl - Love seeing you in the photos. You never age? What’s with that???
Trip Summary » Travel with Dale & Margaret - […] Cochin, India […]