One Final Stop in India: Kerala

Upon landing in Kochi which was the main airport for the final stop on my Indian itinerary, Kerala, I grabbed my bag and walked towards the international terminal to put my large backpack in a locker / coat check for the next two days. Instead of lugging it all around, I figured it would be easier to securely lock it up at the airport. The walk wound up being a lot longer than I thought it would be in that I came in at one end of a different terminal and had to walk all the way to the opposite end of another terminal. Upon arriving at the storage facility, which is 24 hours, both attendants were out on break so I had to call the WhatsApp number and wait about 15 minutes. Once my bag was secured, I went out to the curb of the airport to meet the airport shuttle that would take me to my hotel for the night.

I wound up staying at the Port Muziris, a five star hotel that I got on Marriott's website for less than $90. I was there for less than 10 hours, but the hotel staff gave me an accessible room without me asking which meant I had a shower bench which was a nice surprise. It was just after midnight when I finally got to bed and my alarm went off at 7:15 AM so I could grab a quick breakfast before meeting my driver for the next two days who would take me about 3 hours away from Kochi to the backwaters of Alleppey in Kerala, where I had a one night houseboat stay planned. This was something that multiple people had recommended I do when I said I was going to India, so I decided it was worth the voyage to check it out!

Radjesh, the driver I had hired, met me in my hotel at 8:00 AM and we started the drive towards the houseboat. The drive should have been about an hour and a half to two hours, but the road was under construction and took closer to three. The car was quite comfortable, though, and I just spent the time looking out of the window enjoying my final few days in India.

We arrived at the dock about 45 minutes early, since I built some buffer in, but I had anticipated there would be things to do (or at least a restaurant) near the dock while I waited for check in time. It was essentially a municipal dock with dozens of large houseboats docked there, but no other services. Thankfully, the boat was ready and I was able to get on right away. I had booked a shared houseboat with Waves & Dales, as I had a preference to not have a private boat to myself, and wound up with my own boat anyway as nobody else was booked that night.

Getting onto the boat was a bit more difficult than getting onto a normal boat is, in that the boat docked facing the pier so you had to climb onto a small platform that was about 18" wide attached to the boat and walk along that for a few feet before getting to the main area of the boat. It wasn't too hard to navigate, though, as I was on the boat in no time where I met Saji, the captain of the houseboat, and Vijas, the cook! They gave me a welcome drink (a coconut with a straw in it) and showed me my room for the night. I booked a premium houseboat experience, which meant the bedroom had 24 hours air conditioning, whereas other options had air conditioning only at night or no air conditioning at all. The room was all I needed - it had a large bed, bathroom, and shower. After dropping my bag on the bed, I went up to the observation deck, which was about 10' x 20' on the top of the boat in the front.

As I was already there and the only passenger, we wound up leaving early for our meandering float across the backwaters of Kerala. It reminded me a lot of Vietnam in that we were literally floating through the rice paddies and villages that people worked on and lived in. As we floated, there were advertisements along the river for everything from restaurants to massage parlors to grocery stores. Our boat actually stopped at one of the stores to pick up food for lunch, dinner and breakfast for me!

It seemed like we were one of a thousand houseboats along the rivers, but only a handful were operating. A lot of them were docked with no passengers.

It was quite serene just floating down the river with nothing to do. The boat had WiFi, which I made a point of not using as I wanted to be focused on the beautiful part of the world I was in.

After a few hours, we docked along the river and I went downstairs for lunch. If I didn't see them buy the food for me, I would have thought they planned on serving a family of four! I was thankful I mentioned that I didn't like fish when I booked as usually I just eat the other things on the table, but since I wound up being by myself there would have been nobody to eat the fish!

After I ate for at least two people, I went back to the observation deck where we floated down the river for another few hours and started to watch the sunset over the rice paddies.

By 5:00 PM every evening, all houseboats must be docked for the night to allow the fishermen to collect their nets and other activity to take place as needed on the rivers that the houseboats inhibit. Given this, we docked next to a bunch of other boats. A handful of people wound up getting off their boats to walk around the area we docked in, but the majority of people stayed on the boat and watched the sunset or relaxed. I decided to stay on the boat and do just that.

After the sunset, I retired to my room and dinner was ready at around 7:00 PM. Again, the feast in front of me felt like it could have felt a family. I was still full from lunch, but did my best to eat as much as I could. I actually went right to bed after dinner and slept for a good 10 hours before waking up and going up to the observation deck at 7:15 AM for our final hour on the river as we navigated back to the dock we started at. It was fascinating to drive as people were taking shared boats along the river to work or were just out on their boats and along the river running errands.

As we pulled into the dock, I went down to my room to pack up my belongings before going to the table to eat breakfast. At around 8:45 AM, I got off the boat and met Radjesh for the ride back to the airport and, ultimately, back to NYC. I had the option to make a pit stop along the way back to the airport as I had a while before my flight, but Radjesh said there really wasn't anything worth doing that would take less than the amount of time I had so I decided to just go to the airport and go to the lounge.

I checked into my flight, went through security, and prepared to go home.