Kerala Backwaters:

December 12th, 2004 - December 13th, 2004

Greetings from Southern India. Last we wrote we were about to embark on an overnight train journey from Goa to Allepy (which is in Kerala state). They say patience is the greatest virtue while travelling; while consider ours stretched to the max.

We arrived at the train station in Goa about 3 hours early - we didn't want to have to drive the 1 hour at night - however, we still ended up with our hearts in our necks a few times on the drive... it is some kind of phenomenon how they survive here. Anyway, we waited 3 hours to board our train. Once it pulled up we slowly went to approach our sleeper car. That was mistake #1. Since we were in 2nd class sleeper (the lowest class), people started shoving and pushing to get on. While that is normal, what happened next was not.

You see, India has a funny way to do train tickets. Seats/Berths are reserved. If you don't get one you get a Wait List ticket. You don't have a seat, but you still hold a quasi valid ticket so when you show up you can see if you have now moved up the queue and received a seat on the train. They also have something called RAC which we believe, though are not totally sure, is something better than Wait List but not quite a seat/berth. Anyway, we were RAC but showed up and had been assigned berths. Good for us... However, due to the thing in Old Goa with St. Francis Xavier there were 30 nuns that just jammed into our train car with RAC or Wait List tickets (some even thought they had no tickets at all - which here, is quite plausible).

So, we were trying to shove people onto the train but we couldn't get into the door b/c it was over full. 72 seats with 72 people plus 30 extra nuns! Finally, after some yelling and shoving we managed to get just inside the door of the train. The rest was chaos... people jammed in the aisle ways, no one sitting down, no one moving their bags... nuns everywhere... People yelling... It was a mess. After 30 minutes of the train moving (with the door open, of course) we finally saw a path to move into the train and try to reach our berth...

Upon finding our berth there were people sitting everywhere... someone was lying on Jess's bed. Everyone started saying "he is in my seat so I am in this seat," etc. etc. So, as good Canadians, we took control and started moving people into their proper seats. However, the person lying in Jess's bed would not wake up. Finally, after shaking the person to wake up, she lifts here head and it turns out to be a nun. So the bad people that we are, we asked her to get out of the bed. About 1.5 hours after we got on the train, finally, everyone got reorganized and into their proper places. Each berth has 8 beds - plus, with all the extra people on the floor and such - we were about 12-14 in ours... a few people doubled up and some nuns just piled on wherever there was room... India in the Raw!

The train lasted 17.5 hours (from 10pm till about 4:30 pm the next day). It was the worst 17 hours of our lives... it was hot, sweaty, squished, we were sleeping on our bags on tiny little beds - I used a Nalgene bottle as a pillow for part of it! Oh, and it was close to 40 degrees out and we only had a couple of crappy fans in the car...

By the end, we had become friends with the whole car and the nuns were our new buddies and they helped us find Allepy which became our new paradise!

In Allepy we went right to our house boat - we were already late for it (everything here is late). Our boat was beautiful. It was a 40 foot dragon style boat with a bamboo and wicker top that included a front porch to sit on, a spacious bedroom with bamboo windows over the water and a fully functional western toilet. In the back was a kitchen. The crew of 3 (Captain, Deck hand, and cook) took great care of us. We sailed thru the backwaters of Kerela (a somewhat untouched gem of India). There were coconut palms lining the shore and lilly pads gracing the water. The photos are fantastic - I wanted to send some but the USB here didn't work.

We were served a beautiful snack of fried bananas and Chai tea. Dinner was amazing - all sorts of local delicacies. We finished the night by lying on the bow of the ship and looking at a clear sky full of stars - and enjoyed the peace and quiet for the first time in 2 weeks (save for the few mosques who were broadcasting their prayers in the local area - it did add to the flavour). I should mention that it was well over 30 degrees at 10pm and exteremely hot and hard to sleep...

In the morning we were served a nice western style breakfast with omelets and toast before heading back to the mainland... From there we were off to Olavipe Homestay (www.olavipe.com) - it is a massive house on a tiny island between Allepy and Cochin. It has been owned by one family since it was built in 1890. It took 13 years to build and is known by the locals as "The House"! It's official name is Thekkanatt Parayil.

The original family who ran the house had 12 children - it is run by one of the sons and his wife while another of the sons also is around. Anthony, who runs it along with wife Rema were absolutely fantastic to us. We were the only guests so we were spoiled well. We ate dinner with the family at night - all amazing local foods - and spent most of our time with them.

They are a very interesting family - Syrian Christians they call themselves - but 100% Indian. They have a family tree on the wall going back over 300 years! In brief, Anthony used to be a secret service guard for the Prime Minister of India - he has tons of fascinating photos. Rema is a local news anchor - they call her a "News Presenter" and she does not consider herself a journalist. In India, they just use good looking people to read the news - not "journalists" like we use back home (supposedly)!!!

Their family land stretches 40 acres and they are a very well known local family that has extended to many parts of the globe. They said at their last family wedding ceremony at the house, more than 800 people attended!

I won't bore you with more details of staying at the house, but it was the most rewarding experience so far for us. We spend hours talking with the family and learning about local life and customs and they, in turn, learned a lot about Canada.

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