SpiceLines

The town of Alleppy, or Alappuzha, where we will disembark tomorrow, is so riddled with canals that it has been nicknamed the Venice of the East. And though there are no palazzos or piazzas to be seen, the backwaters have dreamy enchantments of a different sort.

Traveling in a kettuvallam instantly catapults you into the slow life. In Kerala’s Malayalam dialect, kettu means “tying” and vallam means “country boat.” For centuries, these covered boats carried rice and other cargo through the backwaters to the port of Cochin. Like its ancestors, our houseboat has an graceful uptilted prow, a hull made of sturdy jackfruit wood, and a curved roof of tightly woven mats spread over an arched bamboo frame lashed together with twine. The captain steers the boat from a perch on the open foredeck. Where cargo once was stored, passengers can watch the world go by while reclining on cushioned seating. There is a dining table, and off the rear hallway, a pair of bedrooms and baths, a galley and an engine room.

Even on a slow afternoon in the backwaters, houseboats chug to and fro. Here, Aji
checks the ropes while maintaining a steady course through the lake traffic.

For the slow life to flow smoothly, you must have an expert crew. Ours is headed by Captain Jose. He sits on the deck, steering with one hand, holding a black umbrella with the other to protect himself from the blistering rays. His curly hair is streaked with grey and his sun-blackened feet are heavily calloused. “Engine driver” Aji, a burly, genial man, keeps the boat running and occasionally takes the wheel. Bineesh Joseph, a 23-year old with a shy smile, is the chef. All three wear light green shirts and go barefooted to protect the decks from being scratched.

This afternoon, the traffic is surprisingly thick, especially where a large river meets the lake. Fleets of kettuvallams chug to and fro. Some putter sedately, others move faster, trailing a wake behind them. A mammoth double decker, the equivalent of a Hummer, passes us at high speed. A captain of industry surveys his domain from the upper deck. Narrow skiffs glide across our bow, carrying women in saris from one side of the lake to the other.

The shores of Vembanad are contained by neat stone embankments fringed with coconut palms and bananas; clusters of white stucco houses with red tile roofs are nestled among them. Occasionally a view opens to the paddy fields, emerald rice shoots emerging from still water. Broadly this region is known as the rice bowl of Kerala, although rice production has actually declined over the last two decades. Growing rubber has become more profitable and requires less work.

Afternoon ginger tea arrives with a plate of delicious fried bananas, golden with
turmeric, dusted with a little cumin and sugar.

Bliss. Chef Bineesh sets a pot of milky ginger tea and a plate of fried bananas on the deck. The luscious bananas are golden with turmeric, dusted with a little cumin and sugar. I have become addicted to Indian chai, black tea usually flavored with just one or two spices—cardamom, perhaps, or fresh ginger, mixed with hot milk and sweetened with sugar.

We pass an odd-looking boat tethered to a dock. This long, skinny, black craft is a chundan vallam or snake boat; during summer and early fall festivals, villages compete against each other in wildly popular races held on the lake. Each snake boat is manned by as many as 154 people: Four helmsmen, 25 singers, and 100 to 125 oarsmen who row to the beat of the vanchipattu (song of the boatman).

Late in the day we pause at a quiet lakeside village called Champakulam. Chef and I wander down the main street, pausing at a fishmonger who urges us to buy bright blue crayfish and silvery pomfret for dinner. The sultry scent of sandalwood draws me to a nearby shop. It’s filled with elephants and intricately carved Hindu shrines, but all I want is a plain necklace of small cylindrical beads. When I put it around my neck, the heat of my skin releases its woody perfume.

In Champakulam, a sleepy village on the shores of Lake Vembanad, a fishmonger
urges us to buy these long legged, blue langoustines for supper.

“How old are you?” asks chef. I ignore him. “Hmmm,” he says. “I think you are the age of my mother.” “Hmmm,” I respond, sniffing a smoky-smelling vanilla bean at a grocer’s stall. It feels soft and supple. “Don’t buy it,” chef says. “It’s not good.”

We drift down the road, past a toddy bar, alongside low stucco walls painted with faded advertising murals. Around a bend, we come to St. Mary’s Church, one of the oldest Christian churches in India, said to be one of seven established by St. Thomas in 427 A.D. Early evening mass is being said, and through the open colonnade of the whitewashed structure, I can see men in clean white shirts on one side, women in bright saris on the other. When it ends, the women flutter through the arches like radiant butterflies who’ve supped on a miraculous nectar.

As dusk falls Jose and Aji carefully back our houseboat into the bank, and tie it up for the night. This takes a lot of maneuvering with bamboo poles, and the captain rejects several spots before he is satisfied. In dim lantern light, Katie, Chris and I eat chicken curry, Kerala rice and for dessert, a creamy samya payasam, toasted vermicelli “pudding” perfumed with cardamom, sprinkled with cashews and raisins, slow simmered in milk until it is as thick and rich as rice pudding. “My kids would love this,” says Chris. Chef writes down the recipe.

One of the pleasures of traveling on a kettuvallam is falling asleep, listening to
the sound of water rippling against the side of the boat. In morning, the smell of
wood burning fires drifts in through the window.

I fall asleep under a filmy mosquito net, windows open, listening drowsily to water rippling against the side of the boat. There is laughter from a party down the way. I awake briefly in the middle of the night to see a light blinking rhythmically in the darkness across the lake. An answering light flashes from a slow moving boat. Smugglers?

In the morning chef airily dismisses my inquiry: “Someone coming home late from a toddy bar.” Hmmm. For breakfast he serves us a thin omelet with shredded coconut, rings of fresh cut pineapple and more of that delicious chai.

The lake is waking up: A woman washes her long black hair in the shallows. Further on, a man and woman stand waist deep in the water, brushing their teeth. The chugging sound of the boat is broken by the slap of laundry on the stone embankment. Small skiffs cross our path, carrying passengers from one side to the other. There is the smell of wood burning fires.

I could drift like this for days.