Day 32: Alleppey Backwaters Homestay

The Connemara tea plantation was named for an Irishman who helped tea grow near Periyar. The guide at the tea factory was from the tourism office and they only offered explanations in English and French. So the north Indian tourists nominated their own translator to translate into Hindi. This worked for about 5 minutes before it was decided we would go look at some slides instead.
There was a strong, not unpleasant smell of tea coming from the tea factory. We walked through the factory looking at the machines and some men engaged in the cleaning, grinding, fermentation and sorting of the tea powder. This was used for tea bags such as Tetley.

Connemara tea plantation

Tea plantations

We continued our drive down winding, hilly roads. The scenery wa beautiful with tea plantations hugging the hills. I soon got nauseous from the winding roads. Karen kindly swapped seats with me upfront and I felt better when we arrived in Alleppey just after 1pm.

We went on a public canoe to get across the river. The humidity was so high that my camera's lens was too fogged to take photos. We would be staying at the Green Palm Homes homestay that night. The rooms were nicer than what I expected from a homestay, with a balcony that wraps around the upper level and looks onto the river.

Green Palm Homes

Lunch was a delicious meal cooked by the grandma of our house - veg and fish fry. I sat by the river with Ravi and Lex for a while, eating a fresh slightly unripe mango that Ravi picked up from the ground.

After afternoon chai and biscuits, we set off an a leisurely nature walk around the small reclaimed island. It was clean and there were many photo opps. Ravi seemed quite happy there running around barefoot, climbing coconut trees, talking about swimming in the river taken unawares by the current. Thomas, our host and guide, talked about the planting of the paddy fields, pumping water out of the fields, how his ancestors came from the Western Ghats and worked with the local nomadic people to reclaim the land.

Houseboat in Kerala backwaters

Kerala backwaters

Canoe, Kerala backwaters

Path on Alleppey, Kerala backwaters

Kingfisher bird, Kerala backwaters

Catering boats, including pots and chairs

We then went on a canoe ride around the backwaters. That was something special. We saw kingfishers, flying ducks, birds, dragonflies. We saw dusk and sunset in those watery fields. Thomas and the boatman sang Malayalam folk songs. It was evocative of fishermen singing their ocean songs.

Sunset, Kerala backwaters

Paddy fields, Kerala backwaters

Dusk, Kerala backwaters

It was a good dinner with chicken and veg. Some of the guys went to watch the cricket IPL semis with Chennai v Delhi. Chennai won. I joined Stine and chatted with the grandma, and 2 young daughters - 9 year old Ann and 7 yr old Anina.

That night in our room, we had a visit from Harry, a palm- sized brown spider who burrowed into Stine's bag and couldn't be found later. Apparently there are no dangerous spiders there, so we rested easy. We chatted past midnight, slightly reluctant to go to bed on our last night on the tour.