Allapuzha, Kerala

backwaters
Originally uploaded by helen beeson

Having seen advertisements for an overpriced "village stay in an authentic keralan village" we decide, incorrectly, that maybe there will be an entrepreneurial family in the same village that will let us sleep in their living room with them for much less. We take a ferry ride up the maze of palm-lined waterways, spying on life in the villages that dot the levies dividing the sunken electric-green rice paddies. The afternoon ferry is full of school-children (the only kind of children you see in Kerala, impressively) and one young boy is writing page after page in a journal. The waterways are lined with red flags bearing either the hammer and sickle or Che Guevara. Once in Chennemkary, we discover we are wrong and get treated like idiots by a man who clearly takes most of the profit from the homestay, but we decide two hours in the village will be enough anyway. We walk the foot-wide paths through the rice-paddies and find a place to go swimming in the canal/river. We are learning about modesty - no full kaftans and we feel indecent with our bare shoulders sticking out of our full-length sarongs. The water is murky brown and delightfully cool. We dry and wait for the ferry back to Allapuzha. The homestay advertises itself as being an hour and half ferry ride from any roads but a group of teenage boys having a party on the dock tell us to take a boat five minutes the other direction and hop on the bus that goes on the freeway. They are listening to music on their cell phones and Lauren asks facetiously "Britney Spears?" They are insulted and say "No. Smack that". Any inappropriate interest in us is channeled, as usual, into polite inquiries: "your good name? which country?"



Back in Alleppey we get fresh pineapple carrot juice from a street vendor and our previous homestay owner hollers at us, says i told you so and gives us both a ride home through the city on his motorcycle. We have a beer with him and he performs his voice imitations of famous Malayali actors, saying he does them with some of his friends at all their religious ceremonies (?). He is about 35 but asks us not to tell his brother that he had a beer, because he will tell their parents, and that will be "big problem". We are thoroughly impressed with Kerala's kindness, honesty and wholesomeness.