Mystery Location

I have a friend who visited India maybe twenty or thirty years ago. He's one of those seriously-off-the-beaten path, adventurous types. He was so excited when I was planning this trip. He told me I had to visit one of his favorite places, Alappuzha (aka Alleppey), to float along the backwaters of Kerala. Unfortunately, in the time between our travels, the rest of the world has discovered Alleppey, and, as one friend told me, the view from your houseboat will be of billboards and other houseboats, not palm trees or villages. With our selfish desire to visit an as yet undisturbed section of the backwaters, we decided to skip Alleppey and scope out another place. Thus one morning we hopped a bus to a town I won't tell you the name of where we caught a rickshaw to another unnamed location. We wandered along the shore for a bit and found a looonnggg footbridge across to a tiny island. A footbridge, right? No motorized vehicles here. The only path was a single dirt track, which we followed around the edge of the island. All we could see on the far side of the sparkling water was swaying palm trees, and on this side we saw a few locals who seemed rather surprised to see us! We stopped for a while and watched a beetle digging a hole. We found a tiny shop selling a few basic goods. I had already told Martin that if we found a business on this island, we were buying something, anything, no matter what. We had plenty of water, so we got bananas. We tried to chat with the shopkeeper to see if we could hire a boatman. He was thrilled that Martin spoke some Malayalam, but we didn't get much past that. We kept walking.

A few times the path seems to dead end into someone's private home, but we keep spotting where it resumes on the other side and no one seems too bothered by our presence so we keep walking. Eventually we end up in a yard with huge tarps covered with drying coconuts. While we try to figure out if we can continue or if we should turn back, the family spots us and calls us over. I try to exclaim about their abundance of coconuts! Martin actually manages a basic conversation. They must have understood at least some of my enthusiasm because they send me over to pick out some coconut. I get a little piece and happily munch on it, but apparently I didn't pick out the right piece and the man goes to fetch me a better one. He comes back with copra: it looks like a tiny coconut and we aren't sure how to open it. Then he squeezes it with one hand and cracks it open, and we realize the entire hard outer husk has been removed. The concentrated aroma of coconut carries me off to state of bliss. When we eat it, we can taste the sunshine that it was basking in moments before.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, chairs appear in the shade and we are seated. Martin has also communicated what we are doing in India, how he came to speak some Malayalam, and that we are hoping to rent a boat (and someone to row it). A few villagers wander through (following the same path we were on; I feel better knowing that it is ok to follow the path through people's yards). One man stops to talk; Martin again gives our story and asks about a boat. He tells us to wait here, and he'll come back for us. So, we wait.

And wait. And wait. We chat. We sit in amiable quiet and enjoy the day. Martin and I watch a hawk soaring overhead. The women clean little fish. The man takes a nap on the front porch. Several neighboring women arrive. They gawk at us, and then set to work packing the coconuts in burlap sacks, which they carry off on their heads. We ask a few questions about the coconut drying business. They try to explain the process. I gather that the coconuts only dry in the sun for a few days. They also have a barn with a loft and a space for a fire underneath for drying. Tea is served. We get tea and a plate of cookies and sweets, some of which are from a bakery in a town on the mainland. I am, yet again, struck by the hospitality of people we have just met.

We both have that sense that our boatman will be back, that it is just our Western impatience that doesn't believe, but, I admit, we eventually discuss how much longer we should wait and when we should give up. Fortunately, it is just talk, and we continue waiting. We are briefly concerned when the man leaves to sell the now bagged coconuts. We aren't sure if we are supposed to leave too, but the family assures us we should wait for the guy to come back.

Eventually he returned and ushered us off to the waiting boat. He was joined by another boatman and they poled us down the river. It had taken a bit of explaining to get a non-motorized boat. From their perspective, motors mean less work and more speed. From our perspective, they mean noise and pollution. It was another reason we weren't interested in the houseboats of Alleppey. We see all sorts of other boats along the river, but they are all working boats. Large, motorized fishing boats. A wooden rowboat ferrying passengers across to the islands. Small boats bobbing along, apparently unmanned until a swimmer appeared, emptying his net full of clams into the boat. Other boats were poled along so full of wet sand that the sides were just above water level. They are doing this in broad daylight, so we assume it is legal. In Aranmula, we had seen impounded trucks full of sand sitting at the police station, their owners having been arrested for illegally mining sand from the Pamba River at night.

Every time we are within speaking range of another boat or people on the shore, Martin listens to the boatmen explain, in Malayalam, that we have been in India for four months and that Martin speaks Malayalam and that we wanted a non-motorized boat!

We pull up on a sandy peninsula where families are drying tiny shrimp on nets spread across the sand. We walk across to Arabian Sea. I have to at least stand in it (once again my churidar pants are getting a salty bath). I can see that the sand drops away sharply, so I don't go in far. The boatmen look nervous nonetheless and tell me not to go any deeper. The language barrier makes it tricky to promise I won't and to explain why I had to stand in the sea.

The sun is low in the sky on the return trip. They drop us off not where we left from, but at the home of the family where we spent the afternoon. They seem pleased to see us and rush off to pick two fresh coconuts for us. After watching the sunset and enjoying our coconut water treat, we say our farewells and thank yous and reverse our path around the island, over the bridge, onto a rickshaw and then a bus.

With Google Earth and a bit of sleuthing, I'm sure you could figure out where we were, but for now this spot is going unnamed. Unless Martin named it in his blog... hmmm, have to check on that. But in the meantime, he has posted some pictures we took that day, so do check those out.