Nat, Nick & Tahlia on a backwater cruise
The backwaters are a series of natural estuaries and man made canals that run for a few 100km the length of the coast and are joined to the sea, hence they are salt water. There are small clusters of villages that live on the small patches of land between the canals. We went on an excellent afternoon canoe tour of the backwaters. After driving for and hour out of town on extremely bumpy roads we reached our leaving point. At one stage the minibus driver while driving was trying to screw the gear lever back on as it had worked its way off after all the bumps!!
The Backwaters
The canoe trip was fantastic. We started in narrow man made canals and ended up in large lakes and wide estuaries. We saw locals fishing, collecting sand for cement and
also coconut processing areas. It is amazing how much they can get out of one coconut. They remove the husks and dry them for making rope (which is also used to make the boats), they use the water for drinking and they press the flesh for oil or milk. Along the way we also visited a spice garden where we smelt curry leaves, ginger and some cashew nut trees. MMMmmmmmmm
Some locals in their fishing canoe
After Kollam we headed further north to Fort Cochin, which is a small peninsular across the harbour from Kochi town. Life was relatively peaceful here compared to the normal bustle of Indian towns. Walking along the waterfront we were mesmerised by the huge chinese style fishing nets they use. These huge contraptions are balanced on a tripod of 10m high logs and they use huge rocks tied to rope as counterweights. They put the nets down for 5mins then pull it up and retrieve the (small) fish from the net.
The Chinese fishing nets at Fort Cochin
From here we caught a train up to Delhi. This train took 2 days, so we decided to get one of the nicer classes of trains with Air Con sleeper. On this train all our meals were brought to us, so we didnt have much else to do but watch the scenery and be feed 5 times a day. The food was actually pretty good, and it was interesting chatting to some middle-class Indians. We shared a berth with a young married couple, who had just been on their honeymoon in Goa. They are both doctors in Delhi and it was interesting getting their perspective on Indian politics and social issues.
We now have 3 weeks in the north of India. How fast time is flying, with already spending a couple of weeks in the south.
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