Malabar coast - August 2005 - Alleppey

On 13th August morning, I took the DTPC ferry to Alleppey. I was going there to see the annual Snake boat race, Nehru Cup, held 14th August every year. Collins and Auriley were traveling to Kochi, but got hooked onto the idea and took the same ferry. It takes about 9 hours to reach Alleppey traversing through the rivers and lakes, narrow canals through the beautiful backwaters of Kerala. The route is beautiful and picturesque except for the odd huge ashram building of the hugging guru “Mata Amritanandamayi”! The ferry was over crowded with tourists, French largely. How I wished that I had brought some ear plugs! The cruise was just awesome. Will write in details later with pictures (hopefully!)

Reached Alleppey after dark and took an auto rickshaw to “Palm grove lake resort”. Well, I knew I can’t get fancy with the name. Alleppey was brimming with tourists and a place was hard to get, and although a little more costly than my budget stay, I found the lady extremely nice over phone, who promised to hold the only available bamboo cottage till 6:30 pm! Collin found out that his hotel room is already given away to someone else because of the delay. So I asked him to tag alone in case mine is still available.

The hotel was far away along the river and secluded. The place was awesome and the owners extremely friendly. Owned by a retired lawyer, the place is built over 1 hectare of land. The place is full of trees, coconut and banana groves, couple of artificial tanks to keep fishes/prawns alive, well kept gardens and in the middle a portico sort of a place, with arches and tall columns and open on all sides for guests to sit out, and which also serves as dining area. In the entire spread of land, there are only 2 cottages and 2 bamboo huts, and there is about 200 meters of river line running along! I have the knack of finding the best cheap places to stay I guess! I patted my own back!

Collin and I would share the bamboo hut, which was good for my pocket. Nice big room, with the bath outside under the open sky!  There was this huge ‘ancient’ mosquito net, which both of us tried to figure out how to get it open and working!! Too complicated for the modern day wayfarers; we soon gave up and decided on mosquito repellents.

The owners were really nice. Philip Abraham and his wife Mariam run the place like their home. They have other sources of income, so this is more like a hobby for them. They were surprised to see a lone Indian traveler! And even wondered how I found the place out, because only the foreign tourists seem to know about the place! We Indians do not travel as backpackers, our traveling is always planned and thought of, and for a cause – maybe pilgrimage, or visiting relatives or to specific places of interests! Travel means usually with friends and families. Anyway, they were quite happy to see me there, and we talked about a whole lot, mostly about my different traveling experiences. I even told them how Alexander Faber stole my idea of “Chasing the monsoon”  Few beers down and Collin went to bed, and I went by the water! I sat by the small jetty and looked around.

It was mesmerizing. All I could see till far off were few twinkling lights of houses by the shores. It was a clear night and plenty of moonlight just right. Absolute silence everywhere and you know what tranquility can be! All you can hear is the sound of the water, small waves breaking out against the jetty in some unexplainable rhythm. I was at peace. I do not know how long I must have lied at the jetty flow looking at the sky spreading out the beautiful sheet of stars above.

Woke up early in the morning listening to birds chirp and with crowing of rooster! How long had it been that way? Set out early morning. Although there are other boat races like Rajiv Gandhi tournament, none captures the festivity as the Nehru snake boat race. Walked up to the DTPC, where people were already lining up for tickets and bought the cheapest gallery ticket for 50 rupees. I knew I would be amongst local crowd there and would enjoy the electricity and feel the enthusiasm the most there.

Near the DTPC office, I met up with an auto rickshaw driver “Shaji”. Shaji too was in festive mood and not keen on earning the extra money on the day, and was more looking to chill! We became quick friends and Shaji took me around to show his city. He was a proud malayali and he loved to show me his city and the streets, temples, the mazes of canals around in the “Venice of the east”, the small beach, and even to a place where Kathakali dance was being performed. He did not know much of English or Hindi, and neither did I know any Malayalam, so the communication was based on keywords (like Yesudas, Mohan Lal, Boatrace, Shalini, Shakila, Todi etc) but that did not stop us from having a good chat! After a lot of loitering around, we ended up in a “Todi” shack. We ordered for couple of “koojas” of coconut Todi, which was absolutely fresh and with amazingly tasty Currymin and Seer fish to go along. I think I had the tastiest food in that shack, maybe the Todi helped! I got to meet some of the regulars there and all of them were extremely happy to see me, and some even bought a few glasses for me.  Shaji and I were soon happily high. I filled my mineral water bottles with Todi for the race. Shaji dropped me to the gallery for the race and took leave to go and report to his wife for lunch, munching enough “paan masala” to hide the smell of the Todi, which I thought would be extremely difficult. He gestured with his head tilted and eyes closes and imaginary knife slashing his throat … that he was gonna have a tough time at home.

Getting onto the gallery was a tough job, the gallery although meant for about 200 people, was already filled with more than 500 and still filling up, and getting up onto it following the usual entrance was impossible; I tried climbing from the backside, and in the process lost my slipper which got stuck deep in the mud. No time to look back or hunt for it, I shook off the other slipper, and climbed up the gallery with the help of few happily high well wishers! Up and settled atop the gallery, temporarily built over muck by the banks near the finishing point of the race. The atmosphere was electrifying! Young or old, everyone was drinking, screaming, singing the traditional boat songs! Many came in colorful jerseys, cheering for their supporting teams! Rush of alcohol often flared temperatures; there were a few ‘playful’ fights, especially with the cops trying to pacify and keep the crowd disciplined. I enjoyed every moment while sipping previously bottled Todi! Many came with betting booklets! The man sitting next to me, seemed like a pro knowing all teams, all stakes, and was constantly on his cell phone placing bets, cheering and jeering, exasperating.  The boats are of some sights! Imagine a narrow slicker, rowed by more than 100 men, and additional 20 to keep the tempo and the rhythms going by beating drums, holding the colorful batons, umbrellas and waving flags! The banks of the lake were filled up with entire Alleppey population, more affluent ones hiring boats, or getting one of the expensive tickets to watch the race from floating decks and huge boats. The commentary was being played out through the ancient tapered megaphones, excellent commentary presumably, which I could not understand but could feel the vibrancy when the commentator sang the boat songs and thousands others sang along. I wished I had a recorder to catch all the excitement.

Suddenly I heard huge crashing sound and saw that little distance away, one of the gallery stands had given off; It could not bear the force of 1000s jumping crazed out enthusiastic Malayalis. And no, the small accident (where 50 got injured) did not dampen the spirit, the rest of the crowd just climbed on to the nearby galleries.

Race over and I walked back to the peace of my hotel. It had been a fantastic day! All I craved a bit, later in the night was for a guitar and rain! As my luck would have it, my entire Kerala trip, I did not get to see any rain!

Next day, I set out towards south! Towards Trivandrum and further Kanyakumari!