House boat Experience

It had been my dream to go in a house boat for a long time. I had been thinking about it and planning for a while. A few months ago, during my first year wedding anniversary, I had made all plans to go to kerala and take a house boat for a day. But due to some other constraints, I had to cancel my plans. After this incident, I was even more eager to take the house boat trip. Finally I decided that I could not wait any longer and hence started to plan my trip for the Aug 15th break. I had to go to Alleppey which is 65 KMs from cochin (which is overnight journey from bangalore in a bus or a train) to take a houseboat.
Inspite of planning the trip almost 2 months in advance, I could not get train reservations on the dates I wanted to travel. So I finally planned my trip as per the availability of trains. I spoke to a travel agent, who agreed to give me the boat after Aug 15. This was the first time the three of us (myself, mom and sandhya) were going on a long vacation.
The plan was to stay in a Hotel in Alleppey for a night and the next day take the boat house and then return to bangalore. On 13th night, we boarded the kanyakumari express from bangalore railway station. After settling down in our seats, we had our dinner which we had packed from home. As this was the starting point for the train, there was no pantry service. Then we all hit the bed. I was woken up in the middle of the night as someone was moving around in our compartment. A fellow passenger was trying to pull the emergency chain. When I asked him what happened, then he told me that he was trying to switch on the light as he had to find his chappal to go to the restroom. I couldn't stop myself from laughing at his ignorance. I was woken up at around 6.00 AM with the sounds of 'chhaaaya ,... chaaaya' and 'kaaaapi......kaaaapi'. People who have travelled in trains in india would know that these were the guys trying to sell chai (Tea) and coffee. I couldn't sleep for long with these disturbances and hence got down from my seat and walked up to the door. The train had stopped in Palakkad station. The weather was very pleasant. It had just stopped raining. I got down from the train to strech myself. When, the train started again, it passed through some lush green fields. There was an overflowing river which was flowing in the direction of the train, which added to the beauty of the route.
The train reached Ernakulam station by 9.45 AM and the travel agent Nivi was waiting for us there.
We had to reach Alleppey which was about 65km from the station. As we were hungry, we asked Nivi to stop at some nice place for breakfast. He took us to 'Sarovaram' . We had very good breakfast at this place. I was very impressed by the service, ambience and food at this place. I can recommend this hotel to people visiting cohcin. Nivi told us that this was one of the best vegetarian resturants in cochin. After breakfast we took an hour to reach Alleppey . All this while, it was raining on and off. Sometimes it would rain so heavily that the visibility would get reduced to less than 50 mts and within 10 minutes we would get clear sky. I had already booked a room in hotel Royale Park and we checked in by noon. Except for some communication problem with the house keeping boys, I was very happy with the hotel. Except for the people in reception, no one could speak english. But with our broken Tamil, we managed our way. By evening, we went to the beach. The beach was around 3.5 kms from the hotel. The sky was clear when we reached the beach. Mom and sandhya were quite busy playing with the waves and collecting shells from the beach and I was busy clicking pictures. I might have clicked around a 100 photos on that day. Fisherman were getting in to the sea in their boats for fishing . There were quite a few tourists around. We took a long walk on the beach watching the changing patterns of the sky . The clouds started getting thicker and darker giving us clear indication of heavy rain. So we walked in to a resturant close by for some coffee. It had become quite dark now, so I went in search of an auto rickshaw leaving mom and sandhya behind. Found an auto after walking some distance in heavy rain. After a nice dinner at the hotel, we retired for the day.

Next day morning, I woke up early, to go to the beach and jog. I walked 3.5 kms in the rain. There was hardly anyone in the beach. As usual, there were many fishermen busy with their work. Having watched them work for some time, I jogged for 2 kms on the beach and then returned to the hotel. Then we all had our breakfast and reached 'finishing point' where had to start our boat journey. The travel agent was waiting for us and quickly ushered us to the House boat.

The houseboat experiece is amazing. You get a full boat for yourself. The boat has a good room (roughly 10 X 10 ft) with attached bathroom. The rooms have mosquito nets and fans. The boat also comes with a kitchen, a 10 X 10 portico with sofas, dining table and more seating. Some boats come with an upper deck for better site seeing. At some extra cost, you can get boats with AC, TV and hot water shower too. There will be 3 people at your service (1 cleaner, 1 driver and 1 cook). They provide 2 meals, evening snacks and a breakfast for you. You can ask them to cook anything for you. I have been told that non veg dishes are very good. You will be on the boat for around 20 to 22 hours. The boats come from Rs 4,000 during off season to Rs 20,000 during peak season. It all depends on how you can bargain with your travel agent. The boats come with one to three rooms. Up to 3 families can take a big boat. This way the cost will come down.
The rates are less during the monsoon.
My package included pick up and drop from cochin and cochin site seeing. I did my bookings from
bangalore. Though this is off peak season, my booking happened to be a semi peak season owing to
two reasons
1. the famous boat race (which was on aug 12th)
2. The long weekend (aug 15th) for Indian Independence day.

The same boats were priced at Rs 15,000 during the boat race. So, even though, I had booked a 2 room houseboat ,I could get a single room houseboat after I landed in cochin, the reason given was that the 2 room houseboat had a engine failure and the agent had to borrow the boat from someone else. I was not totally convinced.

Once the boat starts from alleppey the experience is wonderful. Alleppey town has picturesque canals, backwaters and lagoons, and is described as the "Venice of the East". This trip made me realize why kerala is called 'Gods own country'. The boat passes through many villages in the backwaters. We could see that almost every house in the villages owned a small boat. The boats departs from Allepey at around 12.00 pm to return back to the starting point the next day. The boat stopped for lunch for an hour. The lunch included rice, sambar, 2 vegetable dishes, curd, papads, kheer, and kerala special dish aviyal. After lunch we spent some time playing cards. The boats stop where ever you want. You can take a walk in the picturesque locales. I preferred to stay within the boat as it was difficult to take my mom out of the boat many times. All during the trip, the weather was very good. It was cloudy all the time with occasional rains and clear sky. Evening we all sat on the upper deck of the boat to enjoy a lovely view . We could see many govt. motor boats which would ferry people from one place to other. People use boats as thier primary mode of transport in this place like people use buses in other places in India. Tea was served where we were sitting. At around 5.30 pm, the boat stopped at one of the villages. We could see smaller boats which were used to ferry people from one side river to the other. Milkman used smaller boats to supply milk .
We were told that all the boats would stop for the night at different villages. The fisherman would also get busy during evening. We sat outside enjoying the rest of the day light, but couldn't sit there longer as mosquitos got busy with there acts. So we went in to the room and started playing cards. The cook served us hot pakodas while we played cards. We had a light lunch and then hit the bed. The boat would sway gently when motor boats passses by. I realized how the kids would feel when they were put in cradles.
Next day morning I woke up early to enjoy the morning weather in the backwaters. We took shower and then breakfast was served. The boat started by around 8.00 am and reached alleppey back by 9.30 am. I was feeling sad that the wonderful trip was coming to an end. I noticed that all the boats were heading back finishing their trips.
At Alleppey, my travel agent was waiting for us. He picked us up and took us on a site seeing trip of kerala. We stopped again at Hotel sarovaram for breakfast. We were so impressed by the food their that we returned to the same place for lunch as well. After visiting a couple of places in cochin, we went on the marine drive in the evening which passed through the cochin ship yard. After an hour's boat ride in the sea, we headed towards the railway station. On the route we stopped to by some sweets and famous kerala banana chips for our friends and relatives. The trip back to bangalore was less eventful. Overall, it was a very memorable trip.

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