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Well after another beautiful beach we booked a grueling 12 hour night train to Kerela just to remind ourselves that we are actually backpacking and not just on vacation. Kerela is famous for the backwaters where you can hire your own personal house boat and cruise around the canals and lakes for a day.
So after sharing the lovely 2nd class train with no air conditioning with quite a few locals and of course a few cockroaches as well we decided to treat ourselves and stay at a pretty posh hotel - this is definitely not the backpacking I remember...
Well after a quick dip in the pool and another beautiful sunset at the beach while amusing the locals as I try and play catch with the local kids, we pack our overnight bags for a 24hr cruise around the Kerela backwaters. We were going to look at several boats before we committed to our luxury liner for the evening but we were so impressed with our first boat we jumped aboard and booked it. The next 24 hours myself and Suzanne spent cruising around the beautiful canals and backwaters while being waited on hand and foot by Bob number 1
- the captain, Bob number 2 the chef and Bob number 3 the motor boy - once again, it's a hard life I know... That evening we were served up a local delicacy called lake fish - or as it's more commonly known - Piranha - I didn't know who was going to get eaten, me or him. Anyway, after Suzanne showed me how to eat the wee beggar from her Amazon days he was actually quite tasty...
The rest of the evening was spent as usual watching the beautiful sunset but this time over the backwaters instead of the ocean but as you can guess I’m not complaining.
The next morning we packed our bags to leave our fine vessel to look for another hotel as our previous hotel was fully booked, however as we were about to disembark, Captain Birds’ eye offered us another night on the boat at a reduced cost - how could we say no - especially as we had no where else to stay anyway, so once again we set off to explore. This time we headed off in a different direction although it mattered not a jot to me as it all looked
stunning anyway. That afternoon we were assured that the "lake fish" were not around the immediate area so we jumped in for a quick swim to cool off as it was so hot during the evenings and especially at night as there was no A/C on board - I know, proper slumming it now... So once again we cruised around and we particularly enjoyed seeing the sea snakes just after we finished swimming - that was not in the brochure...
The next morning we had a great traditional Kerela breakfast which I wont even try and describe but this time it was definitely time to go and we headed back to our previous hotel for a quick shower and freshen up before another 14/16 hour grueling 2nd class train ride without A/C to Chennai where we will stay for a couple of days before heading to Pondicherry so until then take care....
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