Alluring Allepey

Allepey is surely one of the main reasons Kerala is called God's Own Country. Getting to this paradise wasn't the easiest of journeys however. We left the mountains and took a bus to Kottayam, towards the coast. The plan was to take a ferry from Kottayam to Allepey but when we reached the jetty we found out we'd missed the ferry by five minutes. Two hours waiting in a grotty little restaurant ensued until finally it was time to hop onto the last ferry of the day to Allepey. It was a very nice journey as the sun was setting and the river banks were filled with people doing everything from washing their clothes to playing cricket.

As we arrived in Allepey late, finding somewhere to stay took quite a while. Eventually we settled on a homestay called Sona. The homestay was a heritage home owned by a sweet old man called Joseph Sona. Joseph's beautiful house had rooms with rosewood ceilings and secluded verandas overlooking the garden. We were so tired when we arrived that Joseph's offer of cooking us dinner was too good to turn down and we had a feast of fish, beef curry and parathas on the veranda.

On our first day in Allepey we decided to take it easy and just arrange things to do for the rest of our stay there. As the allure of Allepey is its expansive network of backwaters, first on our agenda of activities to arrange was a boat trip. Joseph was happy to help and started by showing us his guestbook which featured comments by previous guests about their stay at Sona. A recurring recommendation was a boat trip with a friend of Joseph's called James. After reading a comment written by the BBC film crew who were taken around the backwaters by James six years ago, my mind was made up and we arranged a six hour trip with James for the next day. With no firm ideas of what to do that day itself, Joseph again came to the rescue and planned a whole day's itinerary starting at Himalaya Bakery and ending at a secret beach known only to the locals. "Paradise Beach," as I decided to name it, was incredible. White sand, palm trees and gentle waves with just a few fishermen, some local children and a couple of tourists in sight. Kerala is constantly surprising me and I could barely contain my excitement at finding such a beautiful beach to be almost empty.

The next day we woke up bright and early for our private boat trip with James. The boat could have seated around six people but we chose to sit on the roof and admire the backwaters. James took us through palm-fringed lakes (where we went swimming three times!) and narrow canals which ran through tiny villages. We stopped at one of the villages quite early on to have a look around and I jumped out of the boat with my pack of pens. One of the tips in the guestbook was to bring pens as the local children often ask for them. True enough I ended up giving away all the pens within about 10 minutes. One of the highlights of the day was stopping for lunch at a restaurant which could only be reached by boat. After buying a handful of fresh prawns we sat down and eagerly awaited our banana-leaf lunch and curried prawns. It was well worth the wait. The six hours of lazing around on top of the boat went by quite quickly and we were soon back on the mainland and headed straight for Himalaya Bakery to stock up on samosas and banana chips!

Varkala cliffs

After leaving Allepey, I spent a couple of days in Varkala before heading to Trivandrum to stay with family. Varkala is made up of restaurants and guesthouses perched on stunning cliffs overlooking several golden beaches. I'm always happy at the beach so Varkala was always going to be winner! On our first full day there the waves looked pretty big so we decided to rent a bodyboard. I got completely wiped out a few times and decided to give up and read on the beach instead. Chris persevered and got sunburnt for it! My last evening in Varkala was great as we got to see the fishermen at work. Several men ran into the sea with a huge net, chanting and pulling the net back and forth while the rough waves crashed on the shore. After some time of doing this they pulled the net onto the beach and it was filled to the brim with great big fish which they then tossed around for about 10 minutes. It was quite the spectacle! I was too excited about visiting the family in Trivandrum to feel sad about leaving Varkala but I would definitely like to go there again.