Canoedling

The tour of Alleppey’s backwaters was pretty spectacular! As I said yesterday, we got a canoe tour around Alleppey’s backwaters from early this morning and saw the sights.

It began at half seven – it took a while to actually get to the canoe; first of all we had to actually get an auto to a place along the canal a bit back from the shore, and when we got there we got a ferry. There are stations all along the canal and the rivers along the back where ferries come on a regular schedules and the locals hop and off them for a small fare to get to where they need to go. We met some kids on uniforms on their way to school and grown-ups on their way to work. After a while the canal opened up to wider stretches of waters where the houseboats were wandering along like massive wicker beetles. They look pretty luxurious; I’d say it’d be lovely to spend a week on one just wandering around the rivers here. At the front seems to be the dining area where we could see touring families having breakfast, and then in the house area I assume the bedrooms and dorms are there. They’re the Indian equivalents of those massive sleek cruisers you see floating around between the islands in Croatia.

The scenery is pretty amazing. There’s literally river – and then there’s tropical jungle. There’s no in-between bits; no sandy stretches or grassy fields; just flat water and wild sprawling forests of coconut and banana trees. It’s teeming with life – everything’s green. It’s really rich land.

Our ferry took us to the shore along one of these wide stretches of water and we walked for a bit along the edge, on a foot-wide stone border between the river and the jungle, until we came to a house, where we were served a breakfast of a sort of cold dal, a cylinder of something that tasted like a cross between rice and breadcrumbs topped with coconut shavings, and these spongey white biscuit things covered in a sauce. To a local I must sound like an idiot for not knowing any of the names. Perhaps my Indian readers could educate me? The whole thing was delicious, served on a banana tree leaf and without cutlery. I always find eating with my hands exciting and exotic in a bizarre way. It’s messy and takes forever, and to be honest with stuff like rice and dal it’s just olin impractical, but there’s something inexplicably fun about it.

We also met the family’s dog, Chiku, who took an instant liking to us and even joined us at the breakfast table. He was terribly fond of James.

…

At the house we met a thirteen-year-old girl called Sandra, who was the owner’s daughter. She was very confident and social, and her English was excellent; she was telling us all about her school and the subjects she studies – she wants to study medicine when she goes to college. Everyone down here seems to have much better English – though I guess we’re in a richer part of the country and everyone seems to be much better off. I didn’t even think about it but we haven’t really had anyone come up to us begging since we left the capital, where it was pretty much a daily occurrence.

Sandra is the same age as Twinkle. God, it’d be so weird if they met. I’m sure they’re not that different when it comes down to it – both clearly very smart, sociable, confident – but I’ve been in both their houses and though they’re from the same country they might as well come from different planets. God… I miss my kids. I’ve been in touch with the teachers at Rani Garden a bit, which is lovely – I plan on writing them a proper letter when I go home to Ireland – but I’d also love to see the kids again. What if I never do? It’s completely ingrained in my head that I’ll head back there in a few years to say hi. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility. If I keep telling myself that, I may just do it.

Anyway, returning to the backwaters. From Sandra’s house, which was right by a particularly wide stretch of flat water, we climbed into the canoe and began our travels. It was a small vessel – though maybe bigger than you think. Canoes are not kayaks. Kayaks are the little ones you sit into with a paddle with a blade at either end. Canoes are more like little boats. This canoe had a little roof to cover four of the seats in the middle, then a seat for the driver behind and a seat for someone in front, who for the first stretch, happened to be James.

Contrary to what I’d thought we’d be doing, we just sat there as our driver took us slowly across the stretch of water into smaller canals, which brought us past the locals’ homes and gave us brief glimpses into their lives. Many of them were having their morning bath in the river itself, or brushing their teeth, or washing their clothes or their hair or their food. Some of the women were standing calf-deep in the water and peeling potatoes or scaling fish. There were quite a few men at work, cutting out bricks of mud from the canal with tools that looked kind of like the sleáns used for cutting turf, and tossing them to one side.

There was also a pretty dazzling array of wildlife – aside from the usual half-stray dogs, we saw plenty of brilliantly-coloured butterflies and dragonflies and some that were a sort of mix in between. They were red, electric blue, black and yellow, orange… We also saw some pretty amazing birds as well. You forget that you might just be able to see birds of paradise here in the tropics. Definitely the most spectacular we’ve seen so far in the wild were the peacocks at the Jim Corbett reserve – it always amazes me to think that something as glitzy as a peacock does actually survive in the wild by itself, but we saw it with our own eyes.

The coconut trees really add to the tropical feel. There are a lot of coconut dishes around here which are fabulous – I’ve had one of them before and they’re pretty rich, but generally a great once-in-a-while meal.

As you can tell, at the time I was trying to get all artsy-fartsy with the photography. Did you know a coconut can kill you if it hits you when it falls out of a tree? I guess that means I technically risked my life to take this photo.

We floated by for a couple of hours and stepped out of the boat a few times to take little walks of exploration down some of the paths off the canals. I swapped with James for the front seat. It started out lovely, I was having the time of my life…

…and then five minutes into THAT particular boat ride it started lashing.

We’ve kept our rain-coats on us pretty much since coming here so I had that, at least, and the driver of the canoe gave me an umbrella. I felt like an idiot, sitting there under my umbrella in my bright green rain jacket, curling up my legs under the cover to stop them getting wet. Not only that, but I also felt immensely pretentious being driven around in a boat while the locals were busy at work. I guess they’re used to tourists, though, we got plenty of smiles and waves which was nice.

A couple of storms passed by overhead as we made our way back then – twice we had to stop and wait until the rain was finished to proceed. The water got pretty choppy by the end and the driver had me and the two boys pick up a paddle and get to work to help us all get over to where we’d come from, as the rain filled up the boat.

We eventually made it to Sandra’s for lunch and were served a fabulous coconut and potato curry with big, fat grains of rice, as well as several sauces and mixes. It was fantastic! And just look at the presentation…

Chiku had fallen asleep but woke up halfway through the meal and came prancing over to greet us. It was raining cats and dogs by the time we were finished and there was no way we could go back in the canoe – it wouldn’t have capsized as easily as our eight would’ve in rowing, but we never would’ve made it over to where we’d come from, battling against the wind with just four tiny paddles. We walked to the other side of the stretch of land and got the ferry back instead, and got the return auto back to the beach house. This was where we walked – I still can’t get over how green it all is!

After that we went for a dip in the sea and then onto Cassio’s for dinner. This time there were a few more parties in there and we didn’t feel quite so alone. It was a great day – the tour around the backwaters was really something else and we got to see some amazing things! Tomorrow we’re heading onto Munnar – we’re getting up at half three in the morning to catch the bus that goes there. I’ll see you tomorrow for more adventures!

Photos from The Himalayas

We used today to recover after the hike. I therefore don’t have THAT many interesting things to say, so I’ll use the opportunity to put up the pictures from everything I’ve missed – I promise they’ll be spectacular, which has nothing to do with my photography!

So I guess I’ll start with when we were flying into Leh first of all; t was pretty spectacular. This was the first of the snow we saw from above…

It soon became this.

Then there’s Leh itself. This is the view from our rooftop; I took the photo the first evening we were there. From the terrace you can see all the buildings, a spectacularly close vie wot Leh Palace and on the other side, snow-capped Himalayas in the background. It’s a pretty special sight.

This was our first sunset in Leh. “Sunset” is a bit of a loose term because in the Himalayas, just because the sun’s out of sight for you doesn’t mean it is anywhere else. It’s probably just the mountain you’re standing under.

Even after that when we went for dinner, it took ages for it to go down on the mountain north of the town.

Now, moving on… I guess the next major photo fest I have is from our trek through the Himalayas – we didn’t really take too many when we were rafting on the Zanskar, unfortunately, we were too busy battling for our lives, but I can show you photos from the Hike. I took PLENTY of time to take photos – every one was an opportunity for a rest! This photo was from the monastery where we began. It’s massive golden Buddha.

It’s pretty damn big. Also, look at how blue the sky is – it’s so, so clear in Leh. After the monastery we went to the school where we had tea with the monks. Remember afterwards I was telling you that they all went into a room to chant? This is them.The kid at the front on the left was unbearably cute; he’d left his shoes on by mistake and didn’t know any of the words. They were really belting out the tunes…

I guess after that most of what we saw on the hike looked something like this.

I have a bunch of images like that that would look exactly the same to you so I guess there’s not really much point in sharing them, but from that one I hope you can appreciate the scenery. It’s pretty damn amazing. It really took us by surprise how desert-like the whole thing is – it’s super-dry. The earth is drained of all moisture, and nothing survives except the hardiest of scrub. Apart from that, all there is is rocks and dust.

Remember on the second day of the trek I told you me and Lucy did a really idiotic climb up to the road when we were looking for an easier path? This was the view from the top. If you look really hard, you can see the tiny little ribbon of white at the bottom that is the trail we climbed up from. It was madness! We had to stop every ten seconds or less to catch our breath! We felt on top of the world though when we finally got there; it was a great (if slightly sick) feeling!

This was the lady of the second home stay we stayed in before the final trek, and beside her is Stanzin, our guide. Her kitchen was amazing; you can see all the silver pots I was telling you about behind her. Their hospitality was class! And their cat was cool.

After that day we went across that ridiculous pass – it was when we were debating whether we could do it or not. I was fully decided on taking the taxi and then in a moment of madness I said I do it. This is it here…

The foreground was the bit going down. The path on the right below was the one we took across, and then on the far side you can just about make out the path we went up. If it looks like it’s going straight up, you’re looking at the right one. It was almost impossible, but we managed in the end! Oh, and by the way, these were the backpacks we were carrying up.

Here was the view down from halfway…

And from the top. That bunting was the end-of-the-marathon ribbon.

The inevitable panorama…

And the road on from there at the top…

God, that was one tough hill!

When we got to the village at the end of the trek there were walnut trees all around. For those of you who don’t know, THIS is a walnut. they’re kind of like chestnuts.

Then you pick them off and break them open. This one wasn’t ripe; it’s the white bit inside.

And that was the end of the trek. Next I guess I’ll show you the photos from the cycle, them oat spectacular of which is the one from the top. We were 5600 metres in the air, good God it was cold. It’s really, really high up. It was snowing, we were ill-equipped for the temperature and there was NO air up there; we could hardly breathe – it was amazing! The highest motor able road in the world, don’t you know.

My Google+ made this charming little picture of my team mates, looking very cold.

And THIS is what it looked like when we got to the bottom. Quite a stark change! It was much more pleasant down there – warmer, more air – pretty stunning views as well.

These were the mountains behind us. It was a pretty amazing all-round view.

And this was me, in all my cycling glory. You don’t have to tell me how fabulous I look. I already know.

Once again, the inevitable panorama.

So yeah, that was our adventures through the Himalayas! Hope you liked the pictures, sorry I couldn’t put them up until now. I’ll be back soon for the actually post about the cycle and then our adventures in Kerala, which we’re enjoying at the moment. It’s pretty incredible; I’ve a lot of stories for you and hopefully now enough time to tell you about them!

Talk soon!