This morning started early with my best friend's phone call from Unionville . She was driving home from work and decided to call. It was 3 am our time. Opps! I had my alarm set for 4:45, so when we heard the buzz we thought it was time to get up. We were up and dressed before I looked at the time. 3:20!! We called her back and had a great chat. Then wrote a blog entry. At 5:00 am. We began our walk to docks. To our surprise, someone stopped and gave us a ride on his motorcycle saving us the additional 3kms we still had to go.
We met our new friends from Delhi at a houseboat . Off we went into the backwaters, in the dark.
We saw the sun rise, lots of birds singing and fishermen pulling in their nets after a nights fishing.
On the other side of the rivers edge you can see the rice paddy's. Kuttanad area is called the Rice Bowl of Kerala because of the wealth of paddy crops located at the very heart of the backwaters. Bananas, cassava and yams are also grown. This is perhaps the only area in the world where farming is done 1.5 to 2 meters below sea level. Inland waterways which flow above land level are an amazing feature of this region.
The driver pointed out the government boats. This is when Lisa and I decided to utilize this form of transportation instead of the bus for our next leg of our journey toward the mountains to the east.
Some of these houseboats have 3 bedrooms and serve 3 meals a day plus tea in the afternoon. We have to watch our budget so we couldn't indulge.
Very luxurious!
The driver stopped along the way to pick up his lunch from his wife. Their modest home just behind.
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