trip to Kaavalam

Me and Pramodh decided to spend a day in our famed backwaters.

So we drove to Allepey had breakfast In the Brothers Hotel ( since 1973 )..will post separately.

Later we reached Boat jetty of State Inland Transport Dept .

For decades the Boats are being run to many places like Kottayam ,Kollam ,pathiramanal Kumarakom , and places in Kuttanad like Kaavalamill-painted.

The boats are ill painted like KSRTC buses.

But it was comfortable and seats were plenty.

We were going to Kavalam in Kuttanad.

Kavalam is birth place of kavalam Narayana Panicker. Musician and dramatist .

It just cost 22 Rs for the one and half-hour tri.

It was very breezy though the sun was quite hot.

We just wanted to go to some quaint shop that served good food and toddy so we asked the conductor who told us to get down at Rajapuram .

When place came he told us to walk along the bank and we would see it!

We knew the same boat would return by 2.20 pm .

So we walked along the banks

at places it was dangerously narrow and with big loose stones a single mistake we would be in the backwate

Luckily we reached the shop without any accident.

We were given a table with a nice view .

We ordered some prawns roast as a starter and parotta and Appam with nadan chicken curry and one glass of Mundiri toddy or kallu

The food was delicious the toddy too was tasty and fresh.

Since a toddy has only around 8.1 % of alcohol it's more like a Breezer and one glass just quenched one's thirst but we stopped with that.

The food was good though the chicken was chewy and appeared old!

So we respected it and left it alone.

After this, we gingerly made our way back and got back into our boat.

Kuttanad is low-lying and is rice bowl of Kerala its 11 mts below sea level is said .

There is usually one harvest in a year, during monsoons fields are flooded.

Many houses on banks are on pillars with nothing in the ground floor as during floods its safer for them

But still monsoon floods many houses and we saw some community kitchens.

Many used these boats to go to work and tourists are rare in these boats.

The backwaters is full of house boats.

The only thing we missed was the rain as it was hot and sticky when no breeze.

We returned to Allepey and to Cochin later