On 18th January we got a taxi from Fort Kochi to our homestay on the backwaters where our driver was incredibly patient while we tried to find the place, which turned out to be a cute little tin box with a verandah facing one of the main canals into Alleppey. It was great being able to watch all the boats going in and out of town, just a shame about the cockroaches.
On our first full day we hired a local boatman to paddle us around the nearby canals for a few hours and this really was a great way to see some of the small canals and experience the sights and sounds of daily life here, albeit it feels a bit intrusive to be paddled past someone trying to do their washing or having a quiet shave in the canal outside their house.
Many of the canals are choked with vegetation and I helped our boatman paddle through some of the worst of it, where we encountered this egret who seemed to be trying to chase us off his territory. The trip ended on a slightly sour note as the boatman deliberately took his time on the return trip to get an extra hour's fee from us.
The next day we continued our exploration by getting the Alleppey to Kottayam ferry, a five hour round trip which cost us the princely sum of 50p return. Kottayam itself is a busy and prosperous place, but the highlight of the trip for me was discovering a run down church on a backwater canal which looked strangely like an East Anglian wool church incongruously plonked in the tropics. I'd love to know how it got there.
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