The Backwaters of Kerala are a series of rivers and canals that link hundreds of little villages and towns south of Cochin. A bit like the Norfolk broads I suppose (but hotter and more banana trees and kingfishers flying around)… We decided to do an organised tour. So we headed off in a dilapidated minibus on another scary road where cars overtake on blind bends and buses play chicken with oil tankers. One positive is the cars aren’t exactly high powered (the main brand is Tata?) so everyone has the ability to brake if something is approaching them on the wrong (if is there a wrong?) side of the road..
Our first trip was on a large boat with roof made of bamboo and leaves. We sailed around for a couple of hours watching the fisherman and people waving at us from the riverside (“Another bunch of tourists taking photos of us” they were probably muttering quite rightly!) and then we had a great thali lunch on the boat before taking a small 10-man narrow boat along a small canal. We stopped off along the way to watch someone scaling a coconut tree then opening them with ridiculous precision using a scary looking blade. We also saw people making ropes (they earn a dollar a day for making ropes for 9 hours – a very boring job). All in all a very nice relaxing day and we met a few nice people. Of course the relaxation couldn’t last – the 20km minibus journey back sorted that out…
This journey however was nothing compared to the 6 hour marathon journey up to the town of Kumily, slap bang in the middle of the Cardamon hills. We got to the bus stop early to get the “best seats”. Luckily for us we did get some with leg-room – the rest of the seats are designed for 3 foot midgets. At first driving throught the suburbs the journey was ok – beeping every 10 seconds, accelerating and braking in quick succession etc… It was not until we starting climbing into the mountains that we realised the people we met who described the trip as “an Alton Towers ride without being strapped in” were probably right. We were at the back and the front swung left and right ridiculously, the driver having not a care if he overtook 2 cars on a bend or narrowly missing an autorickshaw while driving through a village at 70mph (well it felt like that)… At regular intervals everyone put the blinds down on the right hand side (there is no glass in the windows of course) which we couldn’t understand – was it so they didn’t have to see just how close we were to that bus, or maybe the dust, or the sun. Very strange…. The last hour was the worst and when we got off – accosted by half-a-dozen hawkers wanting us to stay in their hotel – we were pretty stressed and shaken!!! (We are obviously not hard-core travellers, I’m sure there are plenty of journeys worse than this – but it felt pretty bad)…
Luckily we found a great little place with a balcony and hot water! And next door a great little resturant called Chrissie’s – run by an English woman and Egyptian man…. There is also a shady little bar in town which is like the dodgy bars in Star Wars films; low light, people staring at you, and dodgy dealings going on in the corner. Well they do take out so we de-stressed by enjoying a few beers on the balcony…
The next few days would involve a search for elephants and tigers in the nearby Periyar wildlife park…