View India To 23rd Feb 2011 in a larger map
Uploaded from Phone on the Day
I have now worked out how to blog easily from my phone and so I will be updating my blog daily in India even though it will not be the full entry for the day. This way I can easily let people know where I am :)Right now I am on a lovely little houseboat cruising along through the Kerala Backwaters. It is absolutely beautiful. I am on the house boat until tomorrow mid day. After that I am planning on biking to the wildlife sanctuary which is about 100km in land.
Have a bit of a sore throat and funny nose today.... shame don't want a cold :(
Diary Entry
Woke up about 7 with the light. It was a beautiful morning. Had a slow morning. Breakfast was not great as it was their version of an "English" breakfast. It was white sliced bread toasted with jam. The bread was revoltingly sweet and the jam like pure sugar with red colouring (strawberry apparently). The omelette with it was good though. I bought some proper coffee power from the local shop. It was a extremely fine coffee power mixed with chicory. My coffee cup did not properly filter the coffee and so I had a turkish coffee instead. It was lovely anyway and the cook made it really milky and sweet and so it was great.The shower was really rubbish and I was very tempted to have a swim in the river for a wash as the locals do but I decided against it as I thought it might be pretty polluted...
We headed off about 9. I really understand why taking a Houseboat cruise in Kerala is rated as one of the top 100 things to do. It is just incredibly relaxing and chilled. The boat that I was on is a small boat and only goes very slowly in comparison to some of the larger Houseboats - about the pace of a canal barge. The scenery is amazing and there is something absolutely lovely about just sitting and enjoying watching the world go by.
We stopped for lunch at a very quiet spot with no other house boats around or any houses. I watched as the local fishermen swam to place their nets around the fish in an area of about 50m^2 and then pulled in the fish into their boat.
As we went along I saw thousands of little ducklings coming towards me in a big pack. A man on a boat was herding them. Apparently they farm them. Interesting.
Spent the day reading a little but mainly just watching the scenery and people. I saw loads of people washing their clothes in the river.
This evening we did not tie up next to a village but instead we moored next to some rice paddies along with some other house boats. There was some relaxing Indian music playing on another boat and it was lovely to watch the sunset. They cooked me a lovely diner again - loads of food with fresh fish from the back waters. Both the driver and the cook slept on board at night at the back of the boat.
I really did not want today to end. It has been one of the most relaxing and enjoyable days of my life. So utterly calming and beautiful.I was not sure if I would feel lonely or bored on a houseboat on my own for a couple of days with only 2 elderly Indian men that do not speak very much English. In fact not at all. I really enjoyed the silence and reading my book, taking pictures and just watching the world go bye.
For more pictures see:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111298&id=1408960696&l=30616176b9
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