We didn't want to bother looking for places to stay when we arrived in Alleppey that afternoon so this time we went straight to the place recommended by Ramee from Bamboo House in Cochin.
Faisal's guest house was ok, and just in front of a beach that was surprisingly clean. Nobody talks about the beach scene in Alleppey so we were happy to have a quiet place, not too many tourists wandering about. They were all at the backwaters after all :)
There were a couple of people there already. One of them was Bonnie, who heard us asking about toddy. She showed us around the market area and then took us to the toddy shop and the alcohol store. We wanted to hide the bottles of beer, rhum and toddy that we had. We didn't have a lot, but still we wanted to be discreet. The store gave us this box... Not sure it was a better alternative.
That afternoon, we took a swim on the beach just in front of the guest house. The water was fine and the sand was clean, and I tried to tread the water a little. It was a great sunset moment. As the sun dipped into the water, we felt like we finally found a stress-free place to just BE.
The following day, we woke up late and walked along the beach.
I wanted to see the boats on the breakwater so we took a rickshaw to "Finishing Point." The houseboats are so expensive here, some people have called them floating palaces. Very bright and very noisy in the night. Some have satellite dishes, dvd players, air conditioned rooms and other things you can find in any hotel... which makes us wonder why some people would bother to be in the water at all. We thought the point of taking a houseboat was "to get away from it all." So why take everything with you???
After that we went back to market street for some snacks at the Indian Coffee House.
There was a month-long festival of Keralan culture in Alleppey that started that day, and we were treated to some fireworks and performances.
The guesthouse owner, Faisal, gave us a performance of his own: how to make a lotus flower from an onion.
And then it was like every night, with Faisal challenging his guests to a game of kurrom.
2 comments:
Voir mon fils avec une caisse de bouteilles d'alcool dans les bras ! quelle horreur! Sorry Marj ! je ne l'ai pas élevé ainsi !!!!!!!!
Bravo pour l'oignon en forme de lotus , très fort, je vais m'exercer !
gros bisous
Maman
il me dit c'est pas vrai :D
it was a cool thing he did with the onion! faisal learned it when he worked in a hotel
bisous!
- marj
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