God's own country

Last weekend, our good friend, Mr. Renjit Rao got married to Ms. Manjusha in Chertala, Kerala. I had been to Kerala before but this was the first time that I went there as a pucca tourist. Keval, myself, Girish Shettigar, Pushkar, etc. had planned this trip weeks back and were looking forward to it ever since.
The idea was to take an extra day off and spend some time on the houseboats in the scenic backwaters of Allepuzha (formerly called as Alleppey). This densely populated coastal district has a complex network of canals running over hundreds of kilometers. I believe Marco Polo described this beautiful place as the "Venice of the East" (a title that it shares with Bangkok and Udaipur).
This time of the year, when the monsoons have just started, is considered to be "off-season" for Kerala tourism and if you witness the rains the Kerala - you will know why tourists stay away. However, for us, the weather was just perfect. There was lush greenery all around and the rates were rock-bottom. We couldn't have asked for more.
The marriage was on Sunday and we had decided to land in Allepuzha on Friday morning, spend a couple of days in a houseboat and then attend the wedding. However, both I and Girish were a bit stuck with work so we had to drop the plan. Keval, however, did manage to arrive here with his good friend Subhod (who played an excellent host to us during our Chennai-Pondicherry trip way back in Dec 2004). Both of them rented a houseboat as soon as they reached Allepuzha and spent the whole day calling us up and letting us know what are we missing in life.

The Road to Allepuzha
I, Pushkar and Girish started off from Bangalore on Friday night to Kochi, as we could manage to catch the Allepuzha direct bus. En-route they played a Malayalam movie by the name "CID Moosa" which we found amazingly funny! Early in the morning, we were woken up by a row between the driver and a passenger. Since most of this thread was in Malayalam, we couldn't follow most of it. However I was delighted to Kerala in the rains. It was raining mildly outside and from the front seat of the Volvo bus, I could see an all-encompassing view of God's own country! The trip was fairly uneventful otherwise.
We landed at Kochi (Ernakulam) and managed to find the way to the local bus-stand, feasting on some Appams and Mota(Egg) curry on the way. We were lucky, in a way, because Keval told us later that the Govt. buses were on strike that ended just a couple of days back. You don't want to get stranded in God's Own Country, trust me! From there we boarded a "Fast Passenger" State Govt. bus to Allepuzha which dropped us off at Allepuzha bus stand where found Keval and Subhod waiting to receive us.


Arrival At Allepuzha

The Houseboat Adventures
Immediately after the short reception, Keval informed us that they have rented a bigger, better houseboat which is waiting for us. We picked up some booze from a "Foreign Liquor Shop" (which was way too expensive by Bangalore standards) and headed towards the boat. En-route, Keval showed us some of the snaps from his previous day's exploits and we were stunned.

Houseboat

Peeping Bun

Puttu

Subhod at the wheel

Tharavad Prow

Keval, the Malabari gangster
Keval, being the resourceful guy he always has been, had made good friends with one of the guys who runs a tourism agency there and has access to a number of houseboats and resorts and arranged for the best deals available for us. And the tourism agency guy couldn't ask for more from us - Keval and Subhod rented a houseboat for a day and the next day more people come and ask for a bigger, costlier boat! Keval, with his acute business acumen, observed that that we were "already repeat customers in just 24 hours!".
The new boat was like a complete house by itself - 3 bedrooms with attached bathrooms, a kitchen, a drawing room, a CD/DVD player, even air-conditioning! With the boat they had a crew of four people - 2 for handling the boat and 2 for the kitchen. Food was prepared on board and he we could request the cook to make anything we want (subject to availability of materials, of course). The food costs were included in the houseboat charges. In fact, Keval told me that the last day they had stopped over, bought some prawns and asked the crew to cook. There were no hangups about "outside food stuffs not allowed".

Bedroom

Aisle

Kitchen and Cook

Boatman
The journey started with a round of hot tea and we soon followed it up with quick rounds of beer and vodka while the cook churned up a Pineapple treat and fried prawns.

Pineapple treat!
Through the day there was precious little for us to do but to watch life in the backwaters. This part of the country has such a well connected network of canals that the locals use waterways for commuting more than they use the roads. We could see ferry pickup points at regular intervals. There are dedicated ferries for schools! There are entire colonies and bazaars along the canals - I spotted a BSNL telephone network provider office, a PWD office, schools, you name it! The best part was when the boatman informed Keval that there is even an Engineering college somewhere just off the canals. We had a good time imaging how it would have been going to college on boats, with the rich kids coming on there swanky speedsters. LOL!

A Parking lot for boats
We talked, took photographs, read our books, lazed around - all in equal measure.




And of course, a trip to Kerala would have been incomplete without a visit to the local toddy shop. Our boatman took us across a huge lake (lagoon?), which I guess was called Vembanad (I am sure if I heard that right), right in front of a toddy shop. We picked up some fresh toddy and finished off 2 litres in no time!

Toddy shop!
Soon lunch was served - boiled rice with cabbage, sambhar, fried karimeen, prawns and some fish-curry. After having more than our fill we crashed heavily.

Lunch is served
Apparently they crossed the lake and reached a church which is on the other end. I was some deep asleep that I never realized till Keval woke me up rudely at tea time.

Tea time
Through the day, the weather was nice - warm but cloudy, with the sun peeping once in a while. Soon after tea, when the houseboat started off towards its parking slot, it started raining. However, it was a pleasant sort of rain, not a heavy shower or thunderstorm. The waterways looked even more beautiful!

Rains!
At dusk, they parked the houseboat next to a huge stretch of paddy fields. We continued with our drinking sessions, while the cooks made some chicken and served it rice and chappatis. We started discussions about college, work, career, money... One by one, we hit the sack - with Pushkar leading as usual. In the end, only I and Subhod sat and exchanging fundas about why does Communism thrive in Kerala. And Subhod, basically being a Kerallite, showed surprising knowledge of how things work (or rather don't work) in Kerala. Among other nuggets of trivia that I gathered, one interesting fact was that most marriages are scheduled on a Sunday. The reason being that Sunday is the only day when no strikes or protest marches are scheduled. Apparently the Kerallites believe in observing a complete Sabbath on Sundays. Finally, I went to bed at around 3 AM. Keval had crashed on one of the sofa seats and Subhod decided to join him there, which meant I had a whole room for myself. I guess I was snoring the moment my head hit the pillow.
By the time I woke up next morning, the boat had already started off to the jetty - our 22 hours of glory were over. All good things have an end, etc. They fixed up a very mediocre breakfast of idlis and thick sambhar. It was still raining mildly.

Morning

The Wedding
We quickly bathed and shaved and freshened up and by the time we hit the jetty - we were all set to go. The tourist agency owner (a certain Mr. Madhu Mohan) dropped us off to the bus stand in his car (poor guy had to make 2 trips). We bid him farewell and headed towards Chertala (or Shertallai) - the venue of the wedding. We were received very warmly by Srikanth (aka Boom-boom), our MIT colleague and Renjith's relatives. We dumped our luggage in a room and dressed up there for the occasion. We were right in time for the wedding and got to see most of the ceremonies. It was the first Mallu wedding I had attended so I expected it to be exotic; however, I realized that they were following standard GSB marriage rituals. Some snaps of the wedding:-

Nuptials

Renjit and Manjusha

The Baraatis (From L TO R: Pushkar, Girish, Renjith, Manjusha, Me and Renjith's dad)

We MITians have 2 protocols to follow when at a wedding. One is "Greet and Eat", i.e., first greet the couple, give the gifts (this is becoming increasing rare nowadays - victims, please excuse us, it is just that our memory hasn't been serving us that well these days - buying a gift is something we think of after we enter the marriage hall) and then hit the food court. The second is "Eat and Greet", which is to have your fill and then walk up to the stage and whisper in the Groom's ear that he is a lucky bastard. However, as Pushkar observed, their was a 3rd strain of the protocol which was being followed by most attending this particular. "Eat and Run" was the name Pushkar coined for this. And very appropriate too, the junta rushed towards the lunch section even as the marriage was in progress and after lunch there was hardly anyone to be seen. This, of course, excludes the relatives who stick around offering their suggestions on how married life should be.
After the wedding, Keval, Subhod and Srikanth went their way - they had to catch their rides to Chennai. We, the Bangalore junta, didn't find any direct bus to Bangalore from Kochi or Allepuzha. So we decided to go via Coimbatore. Since the bus was at 11 in the night, we came back to Allepuzha, booked a room - slept late into the evening; had a grand dinner at Alleppey Prince (supposedly the best hotel in the district) and finally managed to board the bus.
We reached Coimbatore at 4 in the morning and thankfully the bus dropped us right next to the railway station. We managed to catch the 5 AM Kurla express which dropped us off at Bangalore by afternoon.
Sorry for this "pedestrian" description; but I really don't think it would have been possible for me to do enough justice to the wonderful time we had in Kerala. Too amazing - try it out at least once.