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Slow Travel - Travelling 80 kilometers in 8 hours

Alleppy to Kollam by Boat

 

Map showing Alleppy( Alappuzha), Kollam and Trivandrum( Thiruvananthapuram		I  have been dreaming about traveling by boat through Kerala backwaters for some time, but could not make it to the top of my priority list so far.  But on last Friday when I realized that I am relatively free and I decided to go. None of my friends found it interesting  to spend a day in Backwaters on a State owned boat with little privacy.  So I started alone.  The boat services between Alleppy and Kollam starts every day at 10:30AM from both Kollam and Alleppy and will end at 6:30PM.   I am in Trivandrum and Kollam is some 60KMs from here and Alleppy is 140 Kilometers.
National Waterways of Kerala		I took a bus to Alleppy in the early morning and reached there by 8:30PM. The Boat jetty is on one side of the Alleppy Bus stand. This is true about Kollam too.  This makes it very convenient. In Alleppy you can get a good selection of House boats as well as ferry services. What I have selected is a ferry service owned by Kerala Government and the cost of the ticket is only Rupees 300 ( Approximately USD 7).  Alleppy - Kollam route is part of National waterways and it is linked through Backwaters, Rivers and man made canals.

 

		The Ferry Boat that I was travelling

 

Upper deck of the boat

 

		Front view of the boat

 

A rear view of the Boat

 

We started exactly at 10:30AM.  Though the boat capacity is 75  there was hardly 10 to 15 people including the boat crew. Except for me all other passengers were westerners on tour. We started very slowly through  a narrow canal and after 15 minutes we entered the broad Backwaters where the boat picked up speed.  The pictures were taken from the boat.

 

		Fishing nets

 

		Fishing nets Another view

 

	On both sides of the boat I could see rows of Fishing nets

 

 

With net attached to the poles, this will look like a spider.  The mechanism can be lowered to the water and then raised again. In the night a lamp will be lighted in the middle of the poles to attract flies. There are a lot of flies here because of the  hot and swamp nature of these areas. The net will be lowered  to be immersed in water.  When flies falls in the water fish will be attracted to the net.

 

Another species that are interested in fish

 

MyCocoNut  – Open Happiness

 

A thin wall that separates river from  paddy fields

 

An essential part of this ecosystem

 

Snake boats are  used only for boat races. A more than a hundred oarsmen propel these boats. People stand in the middle row with drums and sing to the rhythm of oars movement. Since my boat was going very fast I could not get a full view. The tail side of the  boat is not in the picture.

Houses boats comes in different sizes and facilities

 

Houses built on raised land which act as a thin wall that separate the lake and rivers  from paddy fields.

 

 

Thrikkunnapuzha Lock that separate saline water and river water

 

 

	Talking eyes For eight hours I did not talk to anybody.She is not old enough to talk but she gave me company for a brief time.