Steve and Cathy's Blog

We arrive in Cochin (locally called Kochi) and join the cruise ship World Odyssey at the dock. Today’s adventure is called Tranquil Backwaters, and it is a day spent in the maze of canals in and around the town of Alleppey, a town about fifty miles south of the city. Our day begins with another Immigration face-to-face meeting and paperwork event in Horizons, which actually goes fairly quickly. Again our paperwork is checked two or three times as we leave the ship and board the buses. There must be five busloads of us on this tour.

The port is on an island. It was built by the British many years ago out of sea bottom dug out of the harbor. The harbor is home to the Southern Command of the Indian Navy and is home to a fairly large fishing fleet. The catch is lobsters and prawns that are exported pretty much worldwide. Cochin is a big spice export city as well. As we cross over the bridge to the mainland, we see a police sobriety check – at 9am on a Sunday morning. Our guide Jacob explains that these are random, and the police are very stringent about drunk driving.

Jacob’s English is flawless and almost accent free. We have a 90-minute drive to get to our destination, and he has so much information to share with us as we travel. For that reason, I am going into Random Subject mode as there is much interesting subject matter that he imparts on a multitude of subjects.

• We are in Kerala state, which is a narrow territory that runs 650 kilometers down the southwest coast of the country. It is home to 35 million people. Indians are as specific about their 29 states as we are about our 50 or Canadians are about their provinces. Jacob speaks mainly about Kerala state rather than Cochin.
• People that come to work in the construction industry are often imported from other states, particularly those in northern India. This state has a very highly educated population, with the literacy rate approaching 99%, and many of these well-educated head elsewhere for jobs.
• Unlike much of India, people from Kerala eat a great deal of beef. This is a result of the diverse population that has become accustomed to that diet.
• Kerala has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol in India. It’s not a problem, just another result of the diverse population. The tax on most alcoholic beverages is 210%, but that apparently hasn’t slowed down sales.
• We pass a stand of trees nicknamed “rain trees” because of their dense canopy that will protect a person during a rainstorm.
• We are on a two-lane road, and they drive on the left in India. However, as one guide quipped: “In India, we drive on the left and the right.” Our guide jokes that the lines down the middle of the road are not to separate right and left but to help drivers better aim their cars down the middle of the road. And the driving is indeed something to behold. The road is full of buses, trucks (lorries), motorbikes and cars. Beeping of horns is constant, either to warn other vehicles of your presence or to comment on a particularly crazy maneuver. Indians use every square inch of road. Motorbikes on the far left going 30kph, cars being passed by buses going 80kph (remember, this is a two lane road), people coming out of side roads almost without warning. It’s a madhouse. And this is Sunday. Jacob tells us that during commuter rush, these two-lane roads turn into four or five-lane roads. The speed limit is 80 kilometers per hour, but that is a suggestion it seems. There are people pulling over constantly, pedestrians everywhere, and little stores and shops, houses, businesses and every imaginable kind of economic activity covering every foot of both sides of the road.   You would think there’d be carnage everywhere, but there isn’t. Somehow they make it work.
• Jacob mentions that the lorries (trucks) are almost all privately owned by individuals. The owners paint their name on the sides and front of their vehicles, and often the religion of the driver is noted. I am of course fascinated with the trucks. 90% of them are straight trucks with a huge flat-faced cab and a 25-foot flatbed with three-foot fixed sides. There are millions of them, all of them as I describe. Pictures are below.

• Coconut is a huge crop in Kerala. Every bit of the coconut is processed and used, including the husks, out of which mats are made. Millions of mats are shipped worldwide, and even stores like Ikea carry them.
• 60% of the population of Kerala state are Hindu, 20% are Muslim and 20% are Christian. The relatively high percentage of Christians is due to Portuguese explorers having arrived here in 1498. The Portuguese influence is still felt, as most Christians are Roman Catholic. In fact, there are “Latin Catholics” whose practices mirror Rome, and “Syrian Catholics” that have more localized religious customs. However, there is no apparent conflict between the two. We do see many, many churches, including one immense cathedral built by the Portuguese hundreds of years ago.
• The monsoon season runs from June to sometime in August. It rains every day, but not all day.
• Cochin is the commercial capital of Kerala. While the name has officially been changed to Kochi to make it sound more local, for tourist purposes it is still called Cochin to differentiate it from the Japanese city of the same name. Changing the names of cities from the ones assigned by colonial powers to those more closely identified by the people that now run their countries is common. It’s happening all over Africa and Asia.
• While anyone is free to speak any language they choose, there are three that dominate: Magalaw (I probably have butchered the spelling), Hindi and English. English is the one people use to communicate between language groups, and it is on almost all signs.
• Speaking of signs: there is advertising on Indians are entrepreneurs and business people. I think the government sells space on utility poles, because you’ll see ads on them. Billboards – huge ones thirty feet high – are all over the place. Ads for everything, including movies, Cathy notes. Bollywood movies.
• Motorbikes are everywhere, and only the driver is required to wear a helmet. It is not at all uncommon to see an entire family on one. See the picture below.

• Seatbelts are required to be worn, but only by the driver. Go figure.
• There are thousands and thousands of public buses of all different colors. These are privately operated. They are open (i.e., no windows) and it is customary for women to sit in the front of the bus and the men in the back.
• Gas is $1.10 per litre. Since there are 3.78 litres in a US Gallon, this converts to a price of $4.15 per gallon. Apparently the taxes are pretty high.
• On the other hand, cell service is really, really cheap as there is quite a bit of competition. You can get a used phone for about $10, and the monthly charge is only $3 per month for a good plan that includes a phone plan and a data plan. Many people have two or three phone numbers.
• We pass several lumber yards with stacks of logs. Our guide says that most timber is imported from places like Malaysia.
• There is one alcoholic beverage that is not taxed in Kerala, and it is called Toddy. It’s made from coconut palm sap. It is a laborious process that includes climbing the palm tree, preparing the buds, extracting the sap, and then processing that sap. It starts out with no alcohol, of course, but quickly ferments. It is the drink of Kerala, and there are even Toddy bars.
• Just before we reach Alleppey (Aluppuzha is the local name), which is the community where we will board our boat, Jacob talks briefly about driving in India. “When driving in India, you need three good things. Good brakes. A good horn. And lots and lots of good luck!”

Alleppey is one of the principal towns in this gigantic backwater area. It is a bit hard to explain, because we never did see a map, but there are several lakes all connected by a maze of canals. Hundreds of miles of canals, some a hundred yards wide, others only twenty yards wide, and all widths in between. Lining the canals are houses, most of which are small permanent residences. Some are very humble abodes, but others are quite new and fashionable. In other areas, vast rice paddies can be seen. In fact, this is the biggest rice-producing area in the region, and the canals provide the transportation of the harvested rice to market.

Within the past twenty-five years, an enormous tourist industry has blossomed, and it’s no wonder. The area is gorgeous. The banks are lined with palm and other trees, the miles and miles and miles of canals are tranquil and quiet, the abundance of watercraft of all sorts is interesting, and then there are the house boats.

Yes, house boats by the hundreds and hundreds. Renting a house boat (yes, it’s two words) is a very popular tourist activity. Originally they took old, no-longer-used barges and converted them to house boats. Now they are all constructed strictly for this purpose. Some are only one bedroom in size, but many are two to five bedrooms. They are equipped with electric generators, air conditioning, kitchens and sometimes even second floors. They normally rent for one day, with check-in time being noon. Check out time is the following day between 10am and noon. They come with a three-person crew, including a pilot, a steward and a third crew member that handles lines and so forth. You spend your time cruising the canals and lakes. The cost will vary with the size of the house boat, of course, but during the season, prices start at around $200 per night.

Our bus load of people board our boat around 10:30 in the town, and off we go past dozens and dozens of small boats all available for rental. Not just house boats, but smaller ones offering a nice afternoon cruise. Some even have beds in the bow so you can just lie down as the captain takes you around the canals. It is a phenomenally popular activity in Kerala.

We spend at least an hour and a half exploring various canals. We made so many turns and traversed so many canals that I couldn’t have found my way back to town with GPS. We would all wave at the people on the banks or in other boats, and they’d wave back. (What is it about being in a boat that makes a person want to wave at everybody? It’s just fun, I guess, and being in boats is a shared experience).

There are at least three boats, each holding about forty people, full of Oceania Cruise guests. We are all snapping pictures like mad and Jacob is giving us quite a bit of background info on these canals. There is a nice breeze, which is a godsend in this heat. Fortunately, we are under cover. Our boat has two decks, and Cathy and I opt for the top deck because it is more open and easier from which to take photos. We sit in these old plastic chairs that are actually quite comfortable. This is a wonderful experience.

We then make a stop at the home of one of the residents. They have made their house available for inspection by us tourists. It is clean, neat and orderly as you would expect, and the house is located on the corner of two canals. They have a small yard – and a car. Somehow they are able to drive along the side of one of the canals to a road. As I see it, the road is just the width of the car, so there must be some negotiating if one of their neighbors is heading in the opposite direction. We spend about twenty minutes there, and then we are off.

Eventually we come to a large lake. We cross part of it and dock at a resort for lunch. It is a huge buffet of local Indian cuisine. Tables are laid out under some trees, and rest rooms are available in one of the resort buildings. [With paper and SOAP AND RUNNING WATER!!!] We spend about ninety minutes eating and chatting with our fellow passengers. Finally we get to spend some time with Judy and Kreg Roth from Oregon. We have been on Rovos Rail and at least three other excursions with them and never seem to have managed to be on the same vehicle. Today we are. Steve enjoys a couple of Kingfisher beers with lunch, as Cathy samples all the dishes including dessert.

We board our boats around 1:30 and head back. Apparently we have been going in somewhat of a huge circle, as it only takes about a half hour to get back to Alleppey, where our buses are waiting. Now here is a hint as to how well organized these tours are: when we get to the lot where our five buses are waiting, we see one marked “Spare Coach.” Now these are really nice buses, but Oceania insists on an extra coach just in case one breaks down. Amazing.

We start back to Cochin, but will make a couple of more stops when we reach the outskirts of the city. The first is at a hotel in the Fort Cochin beach community suburb of Cochin that has a bunch of small shops full of gifts. We are allotted twenty minutes there, and Cathy purchases a couple of bars of very nice soap. Yes, we do bargain. They want $6 a bar, we offer $4 and we settle on $5. There is tons of stuff to buy, but that is all we walk away with. [The proprietors gave me the creeps. They stood right behind me and said, “How many you want? You buy? You buy?] Twenty minutes turns into close to forty. Finally we leave for one last stop.

That is at the Chinese Fishing Nets. There have been explorers and settlers coming from China for centuries, and they brought with them some of their technology. One of these tools is an enormous fishing net rigged on poles that are dropped into the water to catch fish. There are huge counterweights on the other end of the poles to raise the nets. The fishing is done at night, so we are able to view these interesting fishing rigs out of the water. They are quite graceful and photo ops abound.

We battle some more afternoon traffic weaving through the villages and arrive back at our ship around 5:30pm. After our paperwork is checked by at least three different people, including military and immigration officials, we walk up the gangway on to Insignia.

We aren’t as exhausted from this trip as we were for the other all-day excursions, but we have been out of doors for most of the day, so showers are in order. Steve has taken four gagillion photos, so he begins the editing process. We eat dinner, read and contemplate our visit.

Steve is about forty times more fascinated with India than he ever expected to be. It is so darn busy, the people are so nice and the country has an energy to it that is contagious. He sees it as a powerhouse of a nation, and, with soon-to-be the largest population on the planet, they have incredible economic potential.

Cathy is not quite so thrilled, primarily because of one very startling and obvious problem: there is trash everywhere. The country is awash in litter. It seems to be in every nook and cranny of the edges of every single road. It is dispiriting to us foreigners, and a bit puzzling too. The people themselves are neat and clean, and the litter problem seems out of character. The most charitable explanation that we can come up with is that the government does not yet have the resources to deal with it the way it’s done in western countries. And because they’ve lived with it so long, I would bet that the average Indian just doesn’t even see all this trash anymore. It’s just part of the landscape.

But other than that, we leave this country very glad that our horizons have been so expanded. We just barely touched upon the place, and yet we learned so much. And the country is so huge that it would take months to really get a sense of the true India. 1.3 billion people and counting. We will never look at India in quite the same way as we did three months ago. Our interest in their future and how it will be intertwined with that of the United States will be enduring. Our perspective has been changed measurably, which was the point of taking this journey in the first place. It’s working.