Now I really moved into the South-South of India. Kerala is greener, warmer and more tropical than the other places I visited up to now. Think palm trees and rice paddies everywhere. Someone at some point must have decided that red contrasts nicely with green, because this state has a very strong Communist movement, and the streets are lined with red hammer and sickle flags. The local Marxist party leaders decorate their election posters with their more well known predecessors, presumably in an effort to be great by associating with greatness. So on the walls all over the cities, Marx and Lenin are staring back at you. When I drove by an ICP convention, I also spotted Che, Fidel and Mao. Even the often left out Stalin was represented, surprisingly.
Besides the posters and flags, the general visitor to this part of the country will not notice much of the political struggles, although a local medical student I met on the bus told me that it is hard for companies to do business here because of all sorts of union activity and restrictive labour laws. This notwithstanding, Kerala is one of India's richest states, due to large spice and rice exports, and income from the well developed tourist industry.
I stayed in Fort Cochin, an old colonial town first taken by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch and then inevitably by the British. The city, and especially the island with the fort on it, is a very pleasant place to spend time, walking the historical streets, visiting the spice markets, and seeing the fishermen do their job using methods that have been around since before my countrymen were around. The Chinese fishing nets, which are mounted on jetties, are huge wooden affairs, with a big fishing net on one side that is dipped into the sea, and is pulled up with a lever construction with big boulders as counter weights on the other side. It takes five people to operate them, and it is a majestic sight to behold. It is also a nice way to catch fish and keep your feet dry, no boat required.
In Cochin I stayed in a homestay. The smaller cities that see a fair amount of tourist usually have a few of these, and the ones I stayed in have been really good. You pay the same amount as for a decent hostel room (about 6 Euros a night), but you stay in a more small scale place, with an owner who lives in the same building. The places I found were all very well maintained and in beautiful locations and/or historical buildings. Because the owners are around, you also have better access to local knowledge, and their prices are always open for negotiation, so I got some nice deals.
After Cochin, I went to another tourist attraction on the Keralan coast, Allepy. A nice 1,5 hour busdrive away, this small town is famous for the backwaters, a maze of small and bigger canals cutting through a landscape of rice paddies and coconut palms. Here I stayed in another homestay, this time not in the city, but a few kilometres and ten minutes on the back of a scooter away from town. This place was run by three young guys who started the homestay two weeks ago. The small house I rented from them still smelled faintly like the fresh paint on the walls. On a small strip of land wedged between a rice field and a bigger canal, just next to a tiny village that obviously wasn't used to visiting tourists yet, it was tempting to spend the two days I had here in the hammock strung between two palms in front of my cabin. It is such a pleasure to find tranquil places in India that you just want to stay there. But I was also curious about these famous backwaters that people kept telling me about, so I agreed to go on a boat tour the next day.
Breakfast was included, so I had to get up at 7:30 to take the public ferry to a fishermen's village twenty minutes out of town. I was joined by an Italian couple and a man from the U.S. Who couldn't stop talking about all his adventures and plans for the future. He turned out to have rented a private boat for the day so we wouldn't have to listen to him the whole day. Too bad, because his stories were actually quite interesting.
During the rest of the day, we were peddled through the canals, having lunch at the house of the aunt of our captain. The boat went slow, the day was warm, the canals were quiet and the passing people in their canoes friendly. A fantastic place to chill out, the hustle and bustle of Indian cities seemed a million miles away.
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