Day 14

Organized tour by boat started early in the morning. One older woman from the homestay also came. We had provided tuk tuk that carried us to the boat jetty, as it's called, in Alappuzha. By public ferry we went to the island when tour guide has home and we ate very nice big breakfast. Guide's wife was adorable woman who didn't really understood when someone was refused more food unless they were physically protesting. Whole group during the breakfast was like mix of older white people and Indian tourists from outside of Kerala. There were couple from Andhra, two young Bengali women and Mumbai woman who didn't really engaged with anyone except asking sporadic questions to the guide.

After the breakfast Bengali girls left and rest of people were split into two boats. I went to the boat with Indians, on the back of the boat with Mumbai lady. Somehow I found some common language with her and we talked a little about historical books about India and what places across India are worth visiting. Overall she felt little distant which was quite a change from openness of malayalis here, but maybe it was simply the attitude she developed traveling solo as a woman.

Boat trip across the backwaters was magical and really hard to describe. It was everything I have been expecting reading and watching about this place, but also there were way more into it. We swam through wide lakes, but also through little water corridors filled with water hyacinths. I observed how beautiful tropical nature blends with man-made spaces of houses and buildings placed at narrow strips of land. People were living here around the water, washing clothes, cooking, cleaning dishes, bathing. Their houses were separated from the water by low walls, but water sometimes literally surrounded their houses and various pathways were leading to the walls. There were always on these walls narrow stairs leading to the water, or rather small submerged platform. People were often seen with their legs in the water and using walls for some practical purpose - like hand washing clothes.

I was making so much photos and videos, because I was in awe of beauty of these places. People were rather ignoring us or looking at us with stoic indifference. It is in big contrast to how usually malayalis react to tourists or maybe to me specifically. The only significant exceptions were children. There were two special situations that become imprinted in my mind. In first, two little girls have been peaking at us from behind the tree, before they decided to wave at us and say hi. Second, I heard the melody from afar that has been moving towards us until it came out to be boat with girls singing some happy song and when passing us by they were overexcited to greet us. I managed to capture that moment on video and it became immediately one of my favorites.

It felt comforting in a way to travel across these serene backwaters, with warm weather, laying lazily in the boat and occasionally reaching by hand to water to cool myself down. Eventually it came to the end and we returned to eat lunch to the same house when we ate breakfast. It was beautiful meal on banana leaf with rice and multiple sides. Again the lady of the house was barely listening to refusals and unless someone was barring their leaf plate by hands or literally folded it, she was adding more food. And because I am very agreeable I ate at least two times longer than everyone and they were waiting for me to finish.

We returned by public ferry and went our ways. I roamed across the city, buying some snacks, visiting beach along my way back, but otherwise doing nothing specific.

At homestay new person appeared. She was Japanese young woman (Mizaki) and I spent talking with her a little. In many ways she seemed to be embodiment of how I would imagine young Japanese woman to be. She was calm, soft spoken, apparently shy. I couldn't help, but to compare with malayali women how they usually appear. Of course that kind of comparisons are sensitive to over generalizations, but I think it would be dishonest to say that there's nothing in it at all. Although both groups could appear "cute" or "sweet", malayali women feel more open and less shy. They also appear to take more initiative and leading you. There's more differences I thought about, but it's pretty vague and hard to put into the words.

I realized that it's so late already and I need to wake up at 5 o'clock next day for kayaking. I feel like there will be deficit of sleep the next day.

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