Houseboat (Jan 6th continued)

Eventually we reached the coastal area again, which is an extensive area of lagoons, interspersed with canals and settlements, sometimes described as like Venice (but without that city's urban beauty). The largest body of water is Lake Venbanad, which extends south from Cochin and is separated into a fresh water part by a bridge, which we crossed on our way to Allepey. The lake is marked by a floating lily plant which is thickest at the edges (see photo) where is delicate lilac-blue flower intensifies its appearance. Abundant fish life too, so that fish-eating birds flock to it – white herons (and an occasional black one), kingfishers, cormorants (the cormorants looked like grebes when swimming but I saw one pop up with a catch (an eel or a long fish) which took some time to process. Grebes are perhaps vegetarians?!) And an egret which was a drab pale brown on the ground but miraculously in flight has white wings and a black back (Also a pair of golden-brown white-tipped winged fish eagles)

We met up with our houseboat – covered in a bamboo framed, rattan covered roof, like a Chinese river boat – and said goodbye to Sunil, our affable driver. The crew of three – engine –driver, captain and chef (not cook) – were to take us on a cruise through the canals and across the lake, with meals prepared and eaten on board. We stopped to purchase six plate-size prawns (fresh-water) on route (1000Rs per kilo, which was the weight of six of them).

Officially leisure traffic should moor at six pm, so that the locals can go fishing, but there is continual ferry traffic for the locals, which goes on much later. As we passed some of the can’s children would run alongside shouting, apparently, for ‘one pen’. We assembled a few old biros, but too late to see if they were what was wanted.

We moored slightly off shore overnight and feasted on our prawns – grilled in spices – but also some fish curry and ‘boatman chicken’. The chef has a web site with recipes.


The dwellings by the canalside were small, but permanent in the most part. As washing of clothes and persons was done in the canal, it would seem that running water, and electricity are not available to most. In addition to the well-stocked lake, coconut tress (and cashew trees) there were paddy fields where water could be fed in from the lake and waterways.