Day 15

I wake up early in the morning, around 5:15 to quickly prepare for kayaking. I went with tuk tuk to proper place and I meet Kannadiga couple that also came for kayaking. It came out that them and me got separate guide and when we boarded our kayaks we went in separate ways.

Journey started by swimming through thick cover of water hyacinths. I followed trail created by my guide. Then we arrived at the wide lake while sun started to rise. It was pleasant weather and not something that could be expected from summer mornings close to bodies of water in Poland. View was beautiful and we spotted otter swimming in front of us.

Kayaking in standing water was difficult for my weak arms, but when guide asked if I would prefer longer break I said that I would rather swim more and go further. Somewhere along there were professional sportsmen kayaking and it only showcased how slow I am in comparison.

Backwaters were beautiful and enchanting as I was already aware after yesterday. I loved especially the narrower canals, even though currently they were often covered by hyacinths and difficult to traverse.

We stopped and get to the land at place that the guide called his village. However much I see these narrow strips of land I wonder how different life of people living here seems. The guide was showing me around, chatting around with people we passed and explained me that these places in general are lands reclaimed from the water. We even saw in one place a lot of mud that as he explained was taken over from water to extend land. We stopped by one tea stand and I ate some snacks and drink coffee. After that we finished tour around his village, he was pointing to me animals, plants (including one that roll into itself when touched) and also things like schools his children are attending (and he was interestingly exactly my age) or houses of his relatives.

We returned to kayaks at the time when it was already very warm. Sometimes sun was beating down, especially at wider lakes, but overall water around and shades in more tighter spaces made it easy to handle. We got to have one more break on land when I ate nice idli and sambar. After returning to kayaks we slowly moved into direction from where we started.

It was satisfying and good activity, but it was not even noon so I didn't want to say my goodbye to backwaters quite yet. I decided to go for a public ferry and go very far to some random place. At first I wanted to find out where given ferry goes, but couldn't really understand. Ticket collector asked me to which place I want to go. I didn't have any sensible answer so I tried to explain that I just want to go for a ride somewhere. He was baffled by that, but eventually sold me ticket to the place he said is midpoint of this ferry route. It was only twelve rupee so basically nothing (at the moment of the writing it is equivalent of 0.58 złoty).

At first I thought that if it's midpoint it can't be quite far, but we were swimming at least for an hour. Although I didn't pay attention this day to tracking time more precisely. I tried to understand where I actually suppose to leave by the map. I got the name of the station of the destination on the ticket, but not every boat jetty is put into Google Maps. Stations had names of places written in Latin script alongside Malayalam only for few first stations and later it's only Malayalam. Google Maps showed me that there's plenty of various quite diverging water routes so at least I tried to track which it takes.

I didn't have to guess where to leave, because ticket collector told me that's my station. I choose one direction and followed body of water. Just here at the beginning I saw big group of girl scouts who were happy to wave at me and greet me. I was just going like that around the island, observing how houses looks like and how people here are. It was very beautiful and I had occasions to once again see this blend of wetland nature and human settlements up close, but this time completely at my own pace, just by walking. Before I noticed few hours passed during the walk and I become little bit tired, especially with that big sleep deficit. I still had feeling that I didn't feel like leaving backwaters, but it was time already for that.

I returned to the same boat jetty from which I got here, by going completely around. I waited quite a long time for a ferry. My previous impression was that they come all the time, but this impression came from the fact that I started at main boat jetty in Alappuzha so ferry of every route was stopping there. When I got on one finally I wanted to watch one more time the backwaters, but I was quite sleepy. It wouldn't be exactly comfortable to take a nap here, but I didn't want either way. So I was watching the backwaters with that dreamy consciousness, when I fell into micro-naps and generally become little bit dreamy and everything, like voices around or impressions and views got either toned down or amplified. I thought that it's actually quite fitting goodbye, as it could imprint this landscape as beautiful dreamscape in my mind.

When I left I headed directly into the beach, to my homestay. I was passing by next to the school for girls exactly at the time when kids were leaving the school. It's worth a note that Indian schools are usually huge, with very big number of students. I got so much attention from so many little girls that I felt really awkward. Usually here I'm not bothered by attention from anyone, but here numbers were just overwhelming.

At the beach finally, at my homestay. I tried to find the owner to discuss matter of laundry, payment and leaving the next day. Instead I found French girl on the rooftop that was new guest. We talked a little bit and she told me she was traveling more across India, long distances like many tourists trying to cover large swaths of India, crossing many famous checkpoints and cities from their lists. I am very slow traveler in comparison, I explained. I traveled only in Kerala so far and I'm planning to visit only Tamil Nadu in addition to that during that trip. What was the most interesting is that when I mentioned that I was on a wedding, she told me that she came initially from Rajasthan, where her boyfriend is from. He went to his native village where some wedding was happening, but she couldn't come, because his family is conservative and doesn't know about her so she couldn't go along. I really hope that I won't have to face similar situation.

I went for last time farewell to the ocean for awhile, because it's not only backwaters I'm leaving, but also coastal regions too. The beach close to my homestay is not very crowdy and in proximity there were only few people playing football in some distance. I got into the water and swim a little while the sun was setting. Somehow I felt it's not that fun for me to swim alone in comparison to Varkala where there were always many people in water, at the main beaches at least. In Poland I would have opposite reaction, I enjoy these moments when I can swim just on my own, e.g. in Nadziejów's quarry, but here in India it's not really like that at all.

After that, I went for a little round to the main beach where usual evening crowds gathered. I didn't really felt I have much to do here at this point so soon I returned. At the return someone called me and I had little chat with some guys who were giving me vadas and also wanted to give me some alcohol, but I refused.

In homestay I went to the rooftop for a little while and there in addition to French and Japanese girl and homeowner was some French guy (unrelated to the girl). He engaged everyone in conversation, but soon I excused myself, explained that I didn't sleep much today and next day I'm leaving with the early bus, so I went to sleep.

.