T-minus one week until our month of surfing begins, so to kill some time we thought we’d check out Kerala and the famed backwaters (backwaters: noun. The Kerala backwaters are a chain of brackish lagoons and lakes lying parallel to the Arabian Sea coast of Kerala state in southern India). We left Bangalore aboard a night bus, and yes Harry Potter fans, it was EXACTLY like the knight bus in Harry potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The following morning we arrived in Kerala, one of India’s southern most states. Our starting point was Fort Cochin, an old Colonial town midway down the coast. Fort Cochin was settled by the Portuguese and Dutch (after the locals of course) some 400 years ago, and the architecture and culture of the area reflect this history. Catholicism has a noticeable presence here too, thanks to the Portuguese. Fort Cochin has a number of Catholic churches and religious monuments, including India’s oldest European church (built in 1503). We also met many catholic locals.
Since we arrived at about 7am, we had the whole day to spend exploring. After checking into one of the heritage homes-turned guest house, we went on a whirlwind tour via auto rickshaw. Our very informative driver took us everywhere from the Dutch palace to the Santa Maria Basilica to the town laundry station (quite literally ALL the laundry for the town is done here, everything is hung to dry in a massive field and they even use a real iron iron…hot embers inside and everything!). He also took us to visit the Water Temple which is where people get married but what was more impressive was that it has its own guard elephants.
That evening we took a cooking class with the lady who ran the guest house that we were staying in. She taught us to make chapathi and veg curry from scratch…. DEE-lish! Oh and it gets better: in the morning we learned to make “puttu” which are columns of steamed coconut mixed with rice flour that you mush into banana….. yummers! Side note: one of the best parts about being in the south is that fresh coconut is used for virtually everything! Almost makes up for the relentless mosquitoes…. Don’t worry moms, we take our malaria drugs religiously
That day we left Fort Cochin to spend two nights on a houseboat that looked like it might be owned by Bilbo Baggins. Our vessel’s Hobbit-esque feel was charming… the hobbit sized double bed equipped with three pillows meant to sleep the three of us was a bit less charming. Not anyone’s fault really; these boats are often taken as a romantic cruise for couples…. Not particularly intended for couple+ Vanessa. Other than the tight sleeping quarters, our float on the backwaters was lovely and the food was unanimously voted the best we’ve had in India so far (see Figure below) and was served to each of us on a Banana leaf. The scenery was also stunning with coconut trees as far as the eye could see as we quietly floated through the spiderweb of inter-connected channels that Kerala is famous for.
After our relaxing vacation (from our vacation) we spent two days in Alleppey where we were finally reunited with the ocean! After a bit of running around in town, we spent our last afternoon in Kerala hanging out at the beach reading, taking in a beautiful sunset and watching a camel go by (yes you read correctly, someone was taking a camel for a stroll on the beach, though camel expert Nouri informed us that it was actually a dromedary.
That night we hopped on yet another train bound for Mangalore and 4 whole weeks of surfing, yoga and vegetarian food heaven!
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