Kerala Waterland

Tuesday 26 February

There's a new face at the table this morning, Katriona from Brazil, who has dropped in for breakfast courtesy of Matthew, the owner. Katriona is planning a small boat cruise round the Backwater bye-ways and is looking for someone to share the experience and the cost of hiring a boat. I jump at the chance, and an hour later we are puttering down the town canal in a sleek little motor launch, like an Edwardian gentleman's Thames steam launch but without the steam (there's a gently purring outboard motor on the back end.) 

Heading off. Note feet in foreground

We have signed up for a four hours cruise at Rs. 300 (£3.50) per hour, the going rate. Katriona and I get on like old chums; we share a love of sailing and travel, though there seem to be few countries she has not visited. She is a lady who does things by halves. She is half Russian, half Italian. She goes off travelling for half of every year. When not away, she spends half her time in Brazil (contains nuts) and half in California, and when there, she is half on her 50ft yacht and half in her apartment. And for half of today, we are sharing the delights of a Backwater cruise.

Vinan (?), our skipper and guide, leads us from broad rivers via narrow side cuts to weed-filled dykes. It is peaceful and picturesque. At every bend a new vista opens up, like a series of living dioramas illustrating daily life in watery Kerala. Here's a woman pounding laundry, there a child having his hair washed in river water. An apronned housewife dressed like a Dutch peasant guts fish, throws the offal to a posse of hopping crows. Six men paddle a narrow canoe at speed, and another passes so heavily laden with cans of kerosene that the slightest wash would sink it. A motor launch, similar to ours, has a group of young Indian men aboard, playing loud music on a boom box. They all take out their digital cameras and snap us as we pass. Secondary pupils in neatly pressed uniforms spill out of their riverside school and coyly practise their English on us as we pass. And there are birds - swan-necked cormorants in the trees puffing out their cheeks, ducks coots and divers, heron and egrets walking on stilts in the shallows.

 We make just one stop, at the St. Joseph's Cement Works and Rabbit Farm, where we drink fresh coconut water (Katriona knows all about coconuts, being from Brazil) and there's a loo should we need it. This is a varied enterprise - not just cement, baby rabbits and coconut juice for boatees, but fantail pigeons, parrot nesting boxes and a hand-reared baby eagle too. 

We're back in town mid-afternoon, and (with little need of persuasion) I lure Katriona into a bar. Bars, Kerala-style (if you can find one) are all-male preserves. I sampled one last night. They are dark, dingy and grubby, full of bleary-eyed men downing glasses of spirits. I secure a chilled beer, and K takes a rum and Pepsi, then likes the rum so much she buys a half bottle. This must be wrapped in newspaper to disguise it before she's allowed out on the street. Shades of American prohibition. Over our drinks, we hatch a plot to meet up again tomorrow for the next leg of the journey south.

Temple service at dusk

This evening I tramp around town, winding up at the main temple, a smaller version of Ettumanur. A steady stream of men and women arrive for a ceremony at sundown, clasping the hands to their foreheads in prayer. Lamps are lit and two bands of musicians (jazzy horn and drums) echo each other both outside and in the central inner sanctum. At the end, a bell tolls and a flame is brought out and passed around for the worshipers to hold their hands in the flame and touch their heads. It is a sort of Hindu Benediction. 

I fail to find an acceptable alternative to last night's restaurant, so I return there for fish, not duck. I also fail to buy Sara a dressing gown or any other things on her list. This is an odd tourist town that doesn't cater for tourists. Even the Kashmiri pashmeena purveyors haven't established a toe-hold yet. I suspect that most of the (very many) people who come here base themselves either on the houseboats or fancy waterside holiday complexes with all food and facilities provided.