A slice of Paradise!

My next destination from Cochin, was Kerala’s most famous tourist destination popularly known as the “Venice of the East” – Alappuzha (pronouncing this requires some tongue acrobats and therefore you can keep it simple -  Allepey) J

According to one of the popular myths around its origin, Kerala  is believed to be reclaimed from the sea by Parasurama – a warrior sage also believed to be the sixth incarnation of Lord Vishnu.

And the legend goes like this - Parasurama kills all the male Kshatriyas (ruling caste) on earth to deliver the world  from their arrogant oppression.  After destroying the Kshatriya kings, he approaches an assembly of learned men to find a way of penitence for his sins. He is advised that, to save his soul from damnation, he must hand over the lands he had conquered to the Brahmins.

Therefore he starts from Gokarna (near present Goa), reaches Kanyakumari (Tamilnadu) and throws his axe northward across the ocean. The place where the axe lands is Kerala.

Flanked by the Arabian sea on one side and a web of rivers on the other, Allepey does seem like the place where Parasuram’s axe ACTUALLY fell,  therefore, cutting it off from the mainland. 

Finding a place to stay in Allepey during the Christmas/New year holidays, requires a bit of planning upfront. And of course all prices are premium at this time of the year.

Therefore after scouring through a bunch of places to stay, we zeroed upon the Casamaria Beach Resort based on feedback from tripadvisor.com.

Contrary to its fancy name, Casamaria is a simple place with basic home stay comfort. This place is run by a small team of friendly staff and I realized that the sheer warmth of this place was the reason why many visitors from within and outside India thronged here.

After a sumptuous lunch at the Dreamer’s café by the beach, our boat journey began right at the heart of the Alappuzha town.  And from here we proceeded into an unbelievable expanse of waters, the Punnamada lake, that forms part of the Vembanad backwaters, believed to be the largest inland water body in Asia.

The houseboats of Kerala are totally eco-friendly and made of wood, coconut fibre, bamboo poles, ropes and bamboo mats. And not a single nail is used in the making of these boats!

American adventure tourist Jason Williams while talking about his country boat cruise says “You slither through the water silently because you don’t want to disturb the mauve hyacinths among which the fish thrive….”

Life in Allepey is quite laid back and simple. However one should not misunderstand this simplicity with backwardness.

Legends apart, Kerala stands first in Human Development Index among the states in India.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. Only two countries in the world (Norway and Australia) have higher HDI than Kerala as per 2011 reports.

And all this with a much lower per capita income than the developed countries!

After a couple of hours on the boat, you can stop by one of the shops by the banks for some hot chai or karimeen or plain tender coconut water. And that is exactly what we did. The coconut vendor further entertained us with his giant pet and happily posed for the camera as well.

In about 4 hours, our backwater cruise came to an end, and indeed, I was wishing for more!