It takes 3 separate local buses and about 9 hours of daytime travel time to make it to our next destination, Cochin, in the neighbouring state of Kerala. Cochin is separated into two parts, Ernakulam and Fort Cochin. And compared to our other destinations in India, the town of Ernakulum is a much more modern, commercial and touristy locale. In Ernakulum, we find western food, tree lined paved walkways by the water and a special ice cream treat that we’re instantly addicted to – the falooda! (a massive concoction of ice cream, coconut milk, dried fruits, syrups, tapioca and out of all things, noodles)
On our arrival day, we walk around Ernakulum and the following day, pack our bags and head to Allapuluzza (Allepey) to rent a overnight house boat to tour the backwaters of Kerala. For accommodations, we get accosted by a guy at the bus station who invites us to live at his homestay and eventually us assists in booking our trip.
The house boat is our biggest expense in India, but worth every rupee. A rustic and Asian styled straw and wooden affair, our 2 bedroom houseboat is fully equipped with a lovely rooftop area. Accompanying Vic and I are 3 other people who service our trip - a captain, a cook and an assistant. The tranquility of riding through the narrow canals eating delicious Keralean food in the beautiful backwaters of Kerala is a wonderful departure from what has been a very busy and hectic travel schedule thus far. 
Riding past rice paddies and villagers who live near the water, we eventually stop at a village to get a close up look inside the house of one of the villagers. Our “tour guide” is a 12 year old boy, very bright and funny, with excellent English. He shows us inside his modest 1 room house where all four family members sleep on a small bed. He also shows us his foreign coin collection, asking us if we could add to his collection by handing over foreign notes or coins as he doesn’t have any Canadian currency. Even though Vic and I usually don’t hand out anything to kids (as we don’t want to encourage begging), the slickness of this particular kid not only gets him some foreign coins, but a couple of other goodies as well.The captain of our houseboat is also a wonderful source of information as he talks to us over lunch about a number of topics ranging from cricket to how Kerala is different from the rest of India in being a communist state to the everyday life of the average Indian.
What we found particularly interesting were details regarding the courtship to his wife which was an arranged marriage between her parents who were family friends with his parents. He mentioned that he rode a bicycle past his future wife every day at her school for a year to look at her but they weren’t able to talk to each other until they got formally engaged (guess he must have liked what he saw). And that there was no physical contact with each other until they were married (now that’s chastity at a whole new level).
After a wonderful overnight houseboat journey, we take the local bus and then a short boat ride to a nearby island to go spend a night in the very cute and quaint colonial town of Fort Cochin. After a restful and relaxing time in Kerala, we have our last yummy falooda before boarding an overnight train to our last destination in India.
