Backwaters

A rickshaw picked us up at 10am from the bus station and brought us to a village on the outskirts of town. It was quiet and there were hardly any people, except the women who work in the shrimp packing factory nearby.

A boat was waiting for us on the banks of the lake and the boatman punted us through a small canal that led to another lake surrounded by coconut trees and fish pens.

It was our day to feel like "royalty." We didn't have to do anything, everything we needed was in the boat. 

We picked this backwater trip because it is the antithesis of the boat trips in Alleppey. Aside from being a quiet place with just 2 boathouses making the trip every day, the lights on the boat are solar-powered and we didn't have a noisy motor polluting the air and the water.

It was all muscle power.

So we relaxed and went on honeymoon mode.

The one time we heard a motor. This crane was floating!

A toddy tapper. He's collecting coconut flower sap to make toddy, what they call coconut wine.

In the afternoon, we asked the boatman to try punting. It looks easy...

But looks can be deceiving.

Maybe Henri did it so well that the boatman disappeared for a while.

Peace and quiet. It felt like a vacation from India.

Later they gave us a canoe and we paddled to the opposite shore and found the church Veronique found on Google Maps. She wanted us to take a picture of the church, and here it is, mission accomplished!

The other canals used to have fish, but now they are blocked.

Giant rooster!

It was the night of the Geminids Meteor Shower, and we were lucky to have a clear sky. While waiting forthe sky to turn dark, Henri and I played with the camera, spelling our names with the moon. Then I thought of doing this:

We saw a lot of shooting stars and tried to wish fast enough before each one disappeared.

The next morning, we were still floating on the lake and we woke up with birds fishing outside our window.

Wish we could do this every day!

But we had to move to the farm house because it was someone else's turn on the boat :)

It was not so bad because we had the view of the lake and a relaxing place to admire it from.

That afternoon, a man named Sugu took us to another section of the village to see the sunset. He showed us how to make coconut rope and toddy.

The next morning, we took the boat again and paddled around the lake.

But it was over so quickly! That afternoon we made our way to Alleppey.