A Chronicle of Amy and Sean's World Travels

Backwaters

And when I wake up in the morning to feel the daybreak on my face.  There’s a blood that’s flowin’ through the feeling, with a knife to open up the sky’s veins.  Some things will never change.  They stand there looking backwards half unconscious from the pain.  They may seem rearranged.  In the backwater swirling, there is something that will never change.
– Backwater, Meat Puppets

Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Yeah, keep on shinin’ your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And I ain’t got no worries
‘Cause I ain’t in no hurry at all
– Black Water, Doobie Brothers

The real jewel of God’s Country is undoubtedly Kerala’s backwaters.  (Hence the busting out of an old 90s tune; the running soundtrack in my brain while we were in this part of Kerala was either this Meat Puppets song or Black Water.  The waters weren’t black, but close enough.)  Laying parallel to the Arabian Sea, the Keralan backwaters are a network of interconnected canals, rivers, lakes and inlets stretching for over 900 km. The canals are like roads; many people’s houses can only be accessed by boat and road signs give the distance to the next village. Similar to the Ganges, people who live along the backwaters very much live their lives in public, using the backwaters to bathe, wash dishes, and launder clothes. We did as many visitors to the backwaters do: rent an overnight houseboat to explore the labyrinth of canals and lakes. The houseboat comes with a two man boat crew, and you get three Keralean meals cooked aboard by one of the crew.  Our experience on the backwaters was mixed: seeing life on the backwaters was fascinating, the scenery divine, but taking a tour by day probably would have accomplished the same thing for less money and maybe even allowed us to have seen more side canals.  On the other hand, we did get to kick back and relax, and see the sun set over the backwaters.  I took the picture above as we docked for the night next to one of the crew member’s canal side house.

Our biggest concern turned out to be our drinking water. When you read in the guidebook to always check to make sure your water bottles in India are sealed, do it. During negotiations for the boat ride, the owner promised us that the price included lots of bottles of water for us to drink. After getting out on the backwaters, Sean asked the crew for some water. One of them took a water bottle from the cooler, opened it, and handed it to Sean. After we finished the first bottle, we asked for a second one. This time, I happened to open the bottle myself, and noticed the cap wasn’t attached. I asked the other crew member for a different bottle. The new bottle also had a cap that wasn’t attached, and I inquired him why. Eventually, through a conversation in halting English, we established that all of the bottles weren’t factory sealed, they refill bottles of water themselves, and Sean and I weren’t happy about this situation, especially since we unknowingly drank one bottle already. If there’s one thing you don’t want to do in India, it is to drink the water. It was never clear to us whether this was a practice directed by the owner or whether the crew did it themselves. It appeared that the owner gave the crew money to purchase food and supplies for the trip, and we suspected that the crew may have been refilling water bottles themselves to try to save a few rupees. As it turns out, the crew picked us up a case of factory-sealed drinking water (which may not have been much of an improvement, as it was some sketchy brand we hadn’t seen elsewhere called Pizza Water with tons of misspellings on the container), and we never got sick from drinking whatever type of water with which they had refilled the original bottles. It is this type of thing that frustrates you again and again in India. No one means any harm, but you can never let your guard down.

View from the train on the way from Fort Cochin to Alleppey

Houseboat on the backwaters - not ours, but similar

Sean kicked back on the houseboat

Washing dishes in the backwaters

No cars needed

Bath time

Shortly before sunset

3 Responses to “Backwaters”

  1. Nilam says:

    Glad you guys didn’t get sick! You’ve probably gained iron stomachs from all your travels. I had to be careful about the same thing in India (always haggling about every minor thing), least of all the problems you think you’ll find are refilled water bottles sold as new ones. Argh.
    I visited Munnar and not the backwaters, gorgeous pics! Hope you can see some tea fields through the rest of your SE Asia tour. PS. Get some masala dosa’s with hot sambar (leave out the chutney as it’ll have regular water) Best meal ever. Some of the best food I have ever eaten has been in India.

  2. Mike Lenzen says:

    Stunningly beautiful photos. Have you tried carrying iodine tablets for treating your own water? I’ve used them while hiking before, and I’m pondering adding a bottle to my pack list for just this sort of scenario.

    Has finding treated water been a consistent problem, or is this more of a one off?

  3. Amy says:

    Hi Mike. Thanks for your kind words about the photos! To answer your question, water has not been a problem at all. Luckily, the more you can’t drink the tap water, the cheaper bottled water usually is. You can get bottled water in places like India, Morocco, and SE Asia for under a dollar. Given how much travel we ended up doing in developed countries, I probably would have brought along my Kleen Kanteen water bottle from home. We drank the water all over Europe, South Korea and Japan, and in most of South Africa. For the developing countries, we didn’t go the iodine route – my brother in law bought us some sort of sterilization method for Christmas but we ended up ditching it at the last minute because it was heavy. Personally, no amount of sterilization would make me want to drink the water in certain places, especially India, so I stuck with bottled. We’ll have to be extra nice to the environment when we get back.

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