Padipura Residency Alappuzha

... while because the crew had to eat as well, but when we were still parked there about an hour and a half later, my mom went back to check out what was happening. She found the captain laying on the floor of the third bedroom with his shirt off talking on his cell phone and asked him what we were waiting for. Five minutes later, we were on the backwaters again.

It was not too hot on the water and the whole day was really relaxing and peaceful ...

... further we descended the 2000m down the hillside, the higher the temperature and humidity rose, until once more we were in the familiar position of sitting in puddles of our own sweat! Actually it wasn't so bad, so long as the bus was moving and air coming through the windows. On the general subject of heat, we can't agree on whether to go to Delhi, Rajasthan, Agra and so on in April. By all accounts the max temp will be approaching ...

... his wife had made breakfast for us. From there he paddled us through the small canals where the women were all doing their laundry on the side of the canal and then everything was very quiet which is a rarity in India. His wife made us lunch we paddled for a little more before heading back to Alleppy for the evening. The views we had of life in the ...

... of the backwaters immediately around Alleppey. We then crossed a large lake, at this point the sky began to look menacing, could defiantly tell some big storms were building up in the atmosphere as we entered another set of wide river channels. Hopefully may get some thunder and lighting later in the day! After a couple of hours meandering though various channels we moored up for some lunch, the food was great and there was ...

... and shorter than we had thought. The travel person at Hotel Arches had said that the ride to Alleppy by bus would take 2.5 hours, 1.5 by car. Either the bus went faster than usual or was an express bus, b/c the ride took 1 hour. Brent and I had ample room on the bus, which had high seats (I couldn't see in front of my seat) and sliding windows. [Naresh: I could see out the front of the bus. It was insane. I was insane for watching, but I couldn't ...

... wonderful adventures on the river in the 100 year old canoe. We entertained the local Alleppey neighbourhood with the fine technique of the "Snake boat" oarsman, the navigation and the preparation for adverse weather conditions! Yes, we were caught out in a storm in the pitch black with no torch! And yes, we did get caught the next day in torrential rain and falling coconuts, but what fun we all had. The gardens of the house captivated us all with banana ...

Alleppy is the major "hub" in the region for backwater tours. The area around here is dominated by huge wetlands dotted with small villages between the rice paddies and criss crossed with canals. The best way to see this is to take a houseboat cruise. After some extensive haggling we ended up with a very nice houseboat, meant for 6 people just for the two of us. It was ...

... for tourists and tourist-related products. Our hope was to find a houseboat tour of the backwaters of Kerala, an experience we first learned about through the now-famous "1000 things to do before you die" book that Steven's mother gave us as a gift before we started this crazy adventure. We aren't planning on kicking the bucket anytime soon, but we were in the area and the idea appealed. What didn't appeal to Cori was the plenitude of bugs on the overnight train crawling on the seats ...

... it over that last hill we were greeted by rows and rows of tea, further than the eyes could see. All sides of the mountains were carefully groomed and prepared for the tea plants. We checked into our hotel a little miffed at our driver for short changing us, but we realized it probably wasn't his fault. We went on a little sightseeing that afternoon, venturing to the top of the nearest mountain to get a great view of the Munnar Valley (see attached pictures). That night was spent ...

... built hammock for most definitely 1 (Soph's already taken a cartoon-style tumble). All of this is sheltered by palm trees and surrounded by gazillions of plants in terracotta pots - words cannot picture it (especially my words). Footnote: Sorry about 2 paras above, Soph told me to be a bit nicer. Just when we were ready to properly chiiiiiill, we were summoned to meet the resort doctor and his wife. After being shown into his office, we were given ...