No Wifi yesterday so I am combining it with today... We left Kochi at around 0900hrs and drove south to the town of Allepay that's not the correct spelling but that's the Anglicised name rather than using the other spelling one. It took around 3 hours to do the 70 klm trip...seems ages but by the time we stopped at a shop etc etc...
Our trusty Waffler has calmed down on the verbage thank god, he did however forget about stopping at a supermarket So at the last minute he pulled into a shabby corner store for us to buy some drinks and nibbles for the houseboat .. Anyway we got some stuff and piled back onto the bus and arrived at the houseboat departure point about 20 minutes later.. So we had 3 house boats for us all and he sorted who was going on which boat..We were totally pissed off as we had ended up with Leaning Lynette and the Head Mistress...Anyway when we went into the allocated room they had a double bed ! Royally pissed off now I went back and told our fearless leader I refused to sleep with my brother in the same bed and thankfully he put us on the other boat with Liberace & Mary Poppins and the two divorcees.. Hail Mary ��.
Agi the guide ended up on the crappy boat and apparently he spent most of his time in his room..
We on the other hand had a wonderful time.. The houseboats are old rice barges and vary in size. Ours had three bedrooms each with an ensuite and ceiling fan as well as air conditioning so they were very comfortable.
At the front of the boat there was a dining table and six cane lounge chairs. We sat and watched the world go by, passing villages and small dugout boats and water taxis it was just so relaxing, they served us lunch then banana fritters for afternoon tea then dinner, the staff was excellent I won't say the food was amazing but it was fair and plentiful . We docked at sunset at a private lodge, they guy who owned it was a Doctor in Sydney who had passed away and now the Homestay lodge was run by his nephew. It was lovely, we walked through the garden and out through the rice fields, chatted with some locals, sang Old McDonald with a small boy who got very excited when we knew the same song as he did.
Back on the boat we had more food and drinks and then settled in for an early night at around 2130hrs because the beer had run out..
This morning we were up early because we had a 5 hr drive further south.. So the houseboats returned to our startpoint from yesterday going via different canals. It was great, one minute your on a river, then a smaller canal then a big lake..They call it the Venice of Kerala .
Everyone was tired so we slept mostly on the bus.. and now we are in a lovely resort by the beach where we fly out from tomorrow night to tomorrow is a late checkout.. I would tell you the name of the place except is had about every letter of the alphabet in it and some..
We got here in time for lunch, the rooms are nice and I just had a questionable pedicure to cut off all the crust skin from wearing sandles for so long.. feeling wonderful.