houseboatshouseboathouseboat!

After just one night in Ft. Kochi, we left in a car for Alleppey, a town almost 2 hours west. We were to set sail on a houseboat from Evergreen Tours, the company that Beth and Chris had used before. Beth very kindly set up a wonderful trip for us (and got us a great discount), so were were a very happy couple of people indeed.

Here is a view of our temporary, floating home-away-from-home-away-from-home.

We were assigned to "Golden Valley"; what a nice name for a boat.



We spent the majority of our time sitting in those two chairs, or lying on that mattress at the helm of the ship.

The boat came with these two serious looking fellows--the captain and the cook (the one with the dark hair)--and a pleasant young Gilligan. These two have a "What the heck are you doing?" look on their faces, becase I very slyly took a photo of them without warning them first--they wanted me to concentrate my picture taking on things that were not them.

We still think that we got the best boat ever, with the best crew ever, but as we were sailing, we realized that our vessel was probably one of the original models built when the whole backwater thing took off.

The one you see above has actual windowpanes and a much grander sitting area at the front of the boat.


This other one looks like it has some sort of special sunroof thing going on, and possibly three bedrooms. We even saw boats that were double-decker, with a bar, television/audio system, and air conditioning (?!?).

Honey, can you turn the CD player up, all of this nature is just too LOUD....







So we started out.



The second we got on the boat, they gave us lovely garlands of jasmine--Breck tied mine in my hair.







And we got this table of delicious fruit.


I can honestly say that I have never eaten such delicious oranges as I did on this boat.


I now know what the phrase "flavor explosion" is supposed to mean (but never does when some company is trying to sell you soft drinks or candy or some other sugary junk.



We were to float at a very gentle pace through the Kerala Backwater network, which we did, thanks to our able captain. Every so often, he would try to point out something that he wanted us to see, but it became quickly apparant that he only knew about 15 words of English, like "flower", "church", "house", and other things that one might see floating down a river past a bunch of villages.

So between his very simple phrases (in a heavy accent), and the little bit of information that we had picked up about South Indian culture and customs, we all did pretty well together.

The cook was usually busy in the back of the boat, and kept the First Mate hopping too. I went back there only once or twice, just to peek at the arrangement. It wasn't even really a kitchen; just a tiny square of space (maybe about 2' x 2') at the very tip of the boat, with a seriously caving linoleum floor, a couple of hot plates and a tiny counter space.


But from that, he whipped up some of THE BEST FOOD I HAVE EVER EATEN. He was great! And just as fussy as any chef I have met in NYC. He would rush quickly from the back of the boat to the front, checking on us. Did we need tea? Coconut water? More rice? Was there enough food for lunch? Did we want fish or chicken for dinner?

Do you see all of that food? We were given that amount for 3 meals a day. At each meal, there was enough food for 2 sittings. Keralan cuisine is very different than most Indian food I have had in restaurants in the States. There were at least 3 different vegetables with each meal, plus fish or chicken and rice. The nothing was in any heavy sauce. It was all very fresh, the vegetables lightly spiced and cooked just until crispy. The fish and chicken were cooked in very much the same way. But the seasonings were completely different than anything we had tried before then--amazing.

These guys were very excited when they saw us coming, and they hitched their boats to the back of ours so that they could troll for fish.

They sold us some of the fish they had caught for our dinner that night.




...and here one of the fish on my plate, with some other delicious side dishes.


Boy, was it yummy!


In between all of this hospitality, the cook and the captain would fuss at each other--about what, I couldn't say. It seemed that they knew each other pretty well (especially after we stopped by the cook's house and got to see the captain holding and playing with the cook's baby--it was obvious that they were pretty well acquainted), and go back and forth in Malaialam--an even faster language than Tamil.

From their tone, they struck me a little like an old married couple. The cook might have been saying, "where are you going? Are you sure you know what you're doing? I don't recognize this place." To which the captain might have responded, "who's the captain here? I'm doing the driving; I know where I'm going. You get back there and stick to the cooking--stop telling me what to do!"


Of course I'm making all of that up, but that's what it sounded like to me.


And then, every once in a while, the captain would pull a string next to his seat, which would ring a little bell in the back of the boat, causing the First Mate to come tramping up to the front, to help with this or that. The First Mate seemed like he spoke absolutely no English, but he certainly was a very pleasant fellow.

Over the next two days, (the cook's English was about as good as Rajendran's) we ascertained that he had a wife and a baby girl (who we actually got to meet at one of the stops we made--if it was an arranged marriage, he certainly hit the jackpot. She was gorgeous, and the toddler was completely adorable). He had been a cook for about 14 years in Chennai's biggest hospital, but now he split his time between the booming backwater tour business, and being a autorickshaw driver in the off season--when it's too hot in the summer and fall months.

So Breck and I had a lot of fun relaxing, looking at all of the beautiful things that floated by, and trying to figure out what the heck was going on between those three on the boat.

It was very peaceful. There was very little noise of civilization going on around us. Just the mooing of cows being bathed in the river, the slapping of laundry as women washed their family's clothes on rocks by the riverside, and once and a while we would see groups of children going to or from school, and they would wave and call to us.

At some point in time, kids in South India learned to ask foreigners for "One pen! One pen!" I'm not sure if they figure it's better than begging for rupees, or if they need them for school, or if they think tourists are more prone to give away pens. But even if they were on the shore, 30 feet away from our floating boat, the call always came for "One pen! One pen!"

Needless to say, we did not risk putting their little eyes out by hurling pens from the bough of our boat. But we did always wave hello.





We had an amazing trip on our little boat, and we were very sad to disembark when it all came to an end.


But then, there's so much more that we have to tell you about India....