Day 33 - Heather

Another early morning - we were woken by the Muslim prayer call at 5.40 am.  However this morning we needed to be up at 6 am for our bike ride.  Our guide met us with the bikes at 6.30 am and we set off heading south along coastal roads towards Alleppey.  It was a really pleasant time of day to be riding and we soon got into the swing of things avoiding potholes, staying out of the way of scooters, rickshaws, buses and trucks and using our bike bells to let others know we were there.  In the early morning the many Catholic Churches enroute were having morning mass which was broadcast via loudspeakers and we passed fish auctions on the side of the road where the mornings catch was being sold.

We were soon into the backwaters area where we were surrounded by large areas of water with strips of land running through them.  We stopped at an old villa,which was built in the style of a monastery, for a breakfast of fresh fruit, muesli, puri, potato curry, toast and homemade banana jam. Feeling completely stuffed we set off again. At one point we left our bikes and hopped into a large canoe for a trip out onto one of the lake areas where the locals fished from and cultivated prawns. Our boatman took us to his house and demonstrated his Chinese fishing net and showed us his catch from that morning which consisted of 2 large crabs.  Then it was back on our bikes for the last part of the ride - by this time it was midday and very warm - we were all glad to get to the end of our journey as our bottoms were feeling a little saddle sore. We had covered 40 km so felt pleased with ourselves and felt ready to hop in the car for the rest of the journey to Alleppey.

We are staying in another very nice homestay.  Alleppey is a big noisy town which is the starting point for many of the backwater trips. After the laid back pace of Goa and Cochin it feels very chaotic. We will be glad to head off tomorrow via boat to Kollam.