Pam and I find a taxi that takes us to Allapey. We finally find our accommodation, Johnson's Nest, and it's a great place - the rooms a big and bright - and we meet Hazel there as well. That evening we go for some food and then to find a houseboat that can take us around the canals - to experience the backwaters of Kerela is one of the highlights of India. It's busy this time if year and the Tourist Office can't help us. On the streets there are several people that want to sell us their tour, and we decide to come back the next morning to check out the boats before we make any deals. Tracy is another traveller that wants to see the backwaters as well, and she wonders if we want another passenger on the boat to make it cheaper. Sure we do!

Hazel, Pam and I go for a stroll in the town, trying to find an Internet place. We realize there is a festival going on - one that lasts for ten days. In the streets there are so many stalls and vendors and even more people taking their Sunday stroll to see the market and go to the temple to worship. We get into the festival mood as the huge crowd is relaxed and people are happy. So much to see and the air is thick with 'foreign-ness' - I love that feeling when everything is just so different and wonderful. We are amazed. I also find myself looking into friendly faces, smiling people who wants to know where we are from. More people speak English here, and they are more used to foreigners, in general they seem to have more interest in visitors and to have a greater confidence about approaching them. Kerela has been doing a lot of trading with Europe for many years, and every religion is represented here. I really like it - it feels so open and easy.

The next day we pack our stuff and we meet Tracy in the town. Pam watches our bags and Tracy and I go with the guys to see the boat. That is the older guy with the stutter who wanted to sell us drugs the day before, the big mafioso-looking guy that told us a couple of fibs about our accommodation and about another boating company, and a third guy with brown trousers. (And if you knew how Indian people say 'third', that would make you laugh). The older man takes us in his auto-rickshaw and the others arrive on a motorbike. We walk through a little village and find the boat. It is OK. Two bedrooms and a chef, captain and a motor engineer. We're up on the deck and we ask for the price. Maybe it has changed from last evening. The older guy is sitting on the stairs and he is making some phone calls. He keeps telling us to wait a couple of minutes. We've been smelling something dodgy from the moment we laid eyes on these guys, and now we've lost patience. We tell him to get out of the way so we can go downstairs and to take us back to town. They reluctantly do. Well back Kim and Tracy talk to the people in the Tourist Office again, just in case they have had any cancellations. I look after the bags outside. All the 'tour operators' are very busy on the phone. Nobody wants to miss the opportunity to sell a trip. The boats usually leaves at 11 in the morning and return the next day at nine. So if they don't have any people by 11 they miss the payment for a hole trip. The other guy we had an appointment with appears, and Tracy and I go to check out his boat. He takes us on his bike (moped) and we drive Indian-style to the docks - all three of us on the bike! That would have been one cool picture! We have the option of going in a boat by ourselves or share a bigger boat with three people from France. We choose that latter and after breakfast and two cups of chai we are on our way. We are very pleased with our choice, not the least because we didn't have to go with the shady fellas.

The backwaters are so quiet, and even if there are lots of other houseboats around us it is completely tranquil. We have some really good talks with Tracy and there are so many things to see here. It feels a bit luxurious to be on this boat and we completely soak it up. We stop for the night, close to a little village. We decide to go for a walk, and after just a couple of meters we pass the house of a man that wants to give us coconuts. Give, not sell. This is new. We have a good chat with him, and he tells us he is very proud of his country and hope we are happy here. He is retired and apparently interested in what we do for a living. His observance has been that most people that comes to visit are educated people. He is pleased with what our chosen professions are, and we thank him for the talk and the coconut and walk further down the path. We hear some chanting and singing from loudspeakers across the water and follow the sound. We stop to enjoy the sunset and we talk to people on the way. Especially children are eager to talk to us, and we are filled with the beauty and the friendliness of this place. Finally we come to the source of the chanting, and the people here are also celebrating and praying in the temple. We linger for a couple of minutes, and then we have to hurry back; it is getting dark and there are no streetlights here. On our way back one of the girls we talked to has been waiting for our return, and she gives us a Christmas card! We talk to her and her sisters and after a while her father turns up, with our friend, the educated coconut man! We take some pictures, and tell them that their daughters are very beautiful. The older man doesn't even answer but goes on to telling us that the girls are at the top of their class. In a country were many girls are killed at birth because their families can't afford a dowry, it was great to see how proud the parents and the friend was of these girls.

We got up early the next morning and enjoyed the chilly and crisp morning and the sunrise. People were going about their usual business, and the call for prayer and chanting went all around the place from loudspeakers. People were washing themselves in the river, and hurrying to the temple for worship.

When we arrived at the docks again we all agreed that the trip could at least have been twice as long, we'd had a great time. We said goodbye to Tracy and got on a bus that was bound southward. We said our goodbyes on the bus and I got off at Amma's ashram. It was the day before Christmas.