One of my favorite parts of our trip was the night that we spent on a houseboat. It departed from Alleppey, and went on a tour of the backwaters. We saw the beautiful lowlands, including many rice patties. The homes were right on the water! Being that it was “dry” season, we all wondered how these people survive during monsoon, where it rains for months straight. Surely the water level rises and their houses flood?? We never did find the answer.

Many people describe India as a “land of contrast.” You might see something unbelievably beautiful (a temple, for example) and then two minutes later see garbage just piled on the ground. Well, it definitely goes that way for service too – the houseboat experience was one of the most pampering experiences we had.

The three of us had the entire boat to ourselves, and there were 4 crew members! We were out numbered! We were welcomed onto the boat with coconuts and a fruit platter – though we were seriously tired of drinking out of coconuts at that point (except maybe Nirav… I don’t think he would ever get tired of coconut milk!), but it was a beautiful little welcome set up. We set sail and just relaxed out on our veranda – I remember being tired, I think Nirav and I both passed out for awhile.

For an afternoon snack, we had fried bananas and chai teas. Oh, chai tea is probably one of the things I most miss about India. But that’s for another entry.

Then, a guy on a smaller boat floated up to our boat and sold us some prawns for dinner. We had to get one, even though I’m the only one that eats them (Nirav is vegeterian and Oak is allergic). The crew fixed them for dinner for us that night along with some weird squash that Oak and Nirav bought at the market. We couldn’t find the squash on any restaurant menus so they figured that was a way to try it!

We stopped for the evening and walked around the area. Not much there but it was very peaceful. In the morning, we had more idlis (surprise!) for breakfast, along with some toast and eggs. Very yummy.

The only luxury we were missing was hot water in the shower. Ugh. A reoccurring issue.. luckily it was about 95 degrees out so the cold water felt good anyway! Needless to say we were very happy when we did find hot showers on the trip. A lame inside joke we had was if each hotel was going to “send the hot water.” One of the times I called one of the hotel lobbies about the water issue, the response I got was that they would “send the hot water.” Now how you do that exactly, I’m not sure. Just another one of those lost in translation responses!

This was one of the more expensive parts of our trip, but I’m so glad we did it. It was definitely a memorable and enjoyable experience!

Posted by Carrie on Monday, March 17, 2008
Categories: blog, india · 2 Comments »