Houseboats and Backwaters

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Next stop - Alleppey. we were in 2 minds whether to go to Kollam or Alleppey to sample the backwaters as we heard they were both brill but Alleppey was more touristy and Kollam was not and had more natural beauty. so going for au natural we opted for Kollam, but changed our minds very last min to head to Alleppey (as pursuded by locals) - good choice tho! Alleppey is a lovely little town with lots of workshops and factories and old men fixing stuff on the street. it wasnt touristy at all - didnt see any westeners at all in town! all the children were so polite and enthusiastic and ran up to us shouting 'Hi'! not asking for pens or anything they just wanted to say hey - so sweet! we were like celebs it was good!
so rented a houseboat - was a bit sketchy cos we looked round one the day before and it wasnt to our liking (bit small) so we didnt know what we had paid Rs3,750 for! but it was absolutely lush! only 22 days old! made of bamboo and light woods it looked ace and very posh! we even had a balcony to sunbathe on all day. we had a captain to drive and a chef on board who cooked our meals - curry for both lunch and dinner but were very tasty. beck had the veg and i had the fish - which was an actual fish on my plate from the Kerela river they had just caught! hmm, was yummy tho!
we spent all day sailing down backwaters and past little native villages with people washing in the water and kids shouting hi! then we took a kayak ride to go down the smaller canals - a bit of a wobbly ride but good fun - we took a beer on board with us to calm the nerves! we then watched the sunset (we love sunsets!), had dinner and parked up the boat for the night. we smuggled a bottle of rum on board so we spent all night playing cards and drinking rum - there was another monsoon storm in the evening, which was very exciting in our boat! in the morning we set sail again back to Alleppey harbour. it was such a brilliant experience, we were like queens in our luxury boat for the day! joy! we would definately recommend it to anyone!
bye for now!

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