Ducks and Rice Barges

April 29, 2009 | Category: India, Southern India | by: Heather

A rustic houseboat near scenic Allepey.

We read somewhere that spending a night in a houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala is one of the top 10 things to do before you die.  It doesn’t make our top 10 list, although it was pretty cool.  We worked our way up the western coast to a town called Allepey, which is a good entry point into a huge area of canals and narrow lakes that make up the transport system for a huge rural area known as the backwaters.  Tiny villages plunked on narrow strips of land with single rows of coconut trees, and rice paddies beyond them, are all connected only by boat here.  We spent a day and night on a wicker houseboat, made to look like an old rice barge…just the two of us and the captain and the cook.  It was probably the most touristy thing we’ve done so far, which probably explains why we weren’t quite as into it as the writer who led us here.  We’re not into tours, or being waited on, or the feeling that every step of the way is staged, just for us.  That said, it was very scenic and peaceful, the food was excellent, and Spence thinks it would be a fun way to live for awhile if we had our own boat, exploring the vast networks of water.  He’s a duck.

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