Thursday, November 06, 2008

Kerala: Backwaters

This morning I was picked up at 9 am to go to the Backwaters. We drove to Veikom, in the district of Kottayam to board our houseboat, or kettuvallam.

We were four passengers, two punters and our guide.

We went first into the Muvattupula river, in the backwaters where fresh water and the Arabian sea meet, then continued into man made canals and then into Vembanad Lake, the second largest in India.

This year’s two monsoons in Kerala were unusual; there was not enough rain and the coconut trees show it. Nevertheless, it’s a lush area with lots of trees, water lilies, wild pineapples, mimosa plants and water hyacinths. We also saw various birds including kingfisher and cormorans.

Amongst the edible plants we saw in one of the islands were green pepper corns on their vines, jack fruits, various bananas and tamarinds, papaya, nutmeg, cocoa, turmeric, “drumstick” and bethel fruit.

We stopped in a village to watch the making of ropes from the coconut fibers. Our guide explained how toddi, an alcoholic beverage, is made from coconut juice, that there are 100 uses coconut, the trees, leaves and so forth and that they’re harvested every two months. We saw how oyster shells are collected then dried to harvest calcium from them.

We took a lunch break in one of the islands, where we ate a copious keralan meal on a banana leaf.

After lunch we continued on to the lake, where we saw fishermen catching their prey by hand, and keeping them in their dhotis (men’s ankle length skirt).

Our six hour excursion in the backwaters was very relaxing. The area is quite pristine, but is suffering from more humans populating the area. There are conservation efforts there as well as the many preserves in the area.

1 comment:

Pat said...

ALORS!
I have been there too.
There is a place where you can see how they do the fishing> unique in the world!
regards
Pat