The HouseBoats of Kerala

I know it's a tourist pitch. It is completely and utterly a tourist pitch. But I'll still go for it. In Goa, if you don't drink Fenny, your trip is incomplete. In Kerala, if you don't see the backwaters on a houseboat, your trip is incomplete.

Fine, let's do it. Actually, I've got to say, for all the terrible shit going down in Kerala, it's really a beautiful place. So we trotted around looking at a couple of houseboats in Kollam and Kollam Beach. All about the same. Fortunately, the best boat was owned by our hotel. So we rented it for a night. I have to say, for the price, it's damn hard to beat it. But if you're into excitement or socializing, you'd better make sure you've got a lively group going with you, otherwise your trip will bore you to sleep and it won't take long.

Our negotiations landed us with a one-night cruise up the backwaters from out hotel. We thought we'd dock at some village north of our starting point and begin again early in the morning and land back at the hotel by about noon. Oops. The boat actually docked at the hotel's "island" about 300m away from the hotel. Quite boring. We'd asked for other people to join us and the hotel insisted that we didn't have to have anyone with us if we didn't want. It was not about the price! For one night with boatride, beautiful room, all meals included for two people the cost was around $150, maybe a touch less. I didn't care about splitting the cost. Going to bed at sunset is just a little boring...

So my suggestions to myself are these. Make sure you have at least 4 people and some entertainment with you. Also make sure that you're taking a two night cruise and that you can dock somewhere else on the first night.

Things that went well.
The food at least was excellent. Actually, some of the best I'd had in India. In addition I'd been asking everyone in the whole state of Kerala for Toddy (fermented coconut wine) and the guy organizing the boat house said he could get some "fresh" toddy. I was excited about that. Turned out, it was basically coconut sap. It hadn't really fermented much yet, but there was yeast present. That basically meant the whole glass of milky sap tasted like bread. A little weird, but I knew what was going on. In addition, somewhere in the middle of a big lake, we decided that it would be a good idea to go swimming. I jumped off the roof of the houseboat and into the lake. It appeared that the lake had a really soft bottom which was only about 2 meters down. So it's rather lucky that I didn't dive into the water, but rather just jumped in. Totally fun time. The water was a bit strong in current, so we decided after about 20 minutes we were done swimming. Funny thing: the boat had no ladder. I don't think they are accustomed to crazy americans actually ENJOYING SWIMMING. So they had to pull us each into the boat by hand. THAT was amusing.