WHAT a palava getting to our houseboat destination. Our day began with an unpleasant experience for me on the bus to Allepey. I was sat shoulder to shoulder with a man who basically kept sneakily trying to touch my side whilst he had his arms folded so I wouldn't notice. After I was definitely sure he was doing it on purpose I yelled at him at the top of my voice asking what the hell he was doing and to keep his hands to himself. On a quiet bus and with everyone now staring at us he was mortified and apologised. Don't apologise, don't do it in the first place! I was FURIOUS. I couldn't believe it, especially seeing as I was obviously sat next to Tom. I've always known that attitudes to women in India are quite often extremely poor. It's currently a big topic for debate in the country. I wasn't expecting first hand experience of this kind. 
 
We arrived in Allepey finally late in the afternoon. We had an amazing place in mind for us to rent a houseboat for a couple of days. We hadn't booked as their website was down at the time we tried. We quite often don't book and turn up and it's fine. Long story short, the address of the place we wanted to stay wasn't as clear as it should have been and actually wasn't in Allepey at all. We found this out after we had been in a tuk tuk for AN HOUR AND A HALF who had also by the way driven us half way back to where we had just come from that day! Argh! Our driver kept saying “Don't worry, don't worry, we'll find it!” with big smiles and after stopping to ask about six different people directions. It was completely dark now and we were riding down an unlit windy road with trees overhanging, seemingly into the middle of no where. I knew the place was in a remote area which is why it was supposed to be good but I was still worried. We were supposed to be nearly there and there had STILL been no signs. We finally got to the end of the road which was a dead end and there was a gate, behind which were a couple of nice buildings. No sign outside. The location was right as we could see the water. This we had been told was it. No lights on anywhere. s***. Our driver went off to find someone and came back a few minutes later with a guy. The guy confirmed we were in the right place but that they were closed for the monsoon! What? Noooooooooooo!!! Tom looked like he might cry at this point. I think it was this along with some serious pleading that finally made the guy let us in. They weren't really closed for the monsoon they just needed a bit of notice, which fair enough we didn't give them. Won't do that again! 
 
Our guy turned out to be amazing! He set up a room for us which ended up being lovely! The kitchen was closed but he called for someone to go get supplies and they made us omelettes and toast with lots of butter. Great! They were super friendly and helpful. We were very apologetic and grateful to them for helping us out at short notice. It turns out they were still running their houseboats so we arranged to set off in the morning. PHEW!
 
I'd been excited about this since we left the UK. We had breakfast on the terrace on the first morning which was yummy and watched our houseboat turn up and then a frenzy of activity to get it all clean and sorted and ready to go. We had a Keralan breakfast of steamed spongy rice things with coconut. They weren't idlys though as they fell apart when put on your plate. These were had with a chickpea curry and pappad. Yum! 
 
We climbed aboard and had a lovely double bedroom with ensuite. There was also an area up front with a table and some comfy chairs to sit and watch the world go by. The kitchen was at the back. We had two people to man the boat. One person punting at the front and one at the back. The boat had no engine which made it nice and peaceful. We had two other guys who made our food for us. We've never been treated to so much food! Each time we had lunch and dinner they would give us a mountain of rice or chapatis or uttapam and four to five different dishes to go with it! We felt like we should try and eat as much of it as possible so we didn't seem ungrateful but it was too much! Fantastic food though. The guys aboard were so friendly and nice :). 
 
We basically spent the two days just chilling and eating. We had quite a few very heavy downpours and it was action stations every time to get the covers down at the front of the boat. Always as soon as they were down the rain would stop, doh! Sometimes you could actually hear the rain before it got to us and the guys would dive to put the covers down quick! On the second day we only had one shower in the morning and that was it. So we were really lucky we pretty much had a whole day without rain or winds! 
 
There were a couple of funny moments when we were making our way back to base when the waters had risen since the morning and we found ourselves unable to get under one of the bridges and it was a squeeze to get under a second. At one stage a group of about 12 boys were crossing the bridge and the guys asked if they could come down and get on the boat to weigh it down. They couldn't have got on the boat fast enough in excitement! :)
 
The backwaters themselves were beautiful in parts. Canals lined with palm trees and forest, sometimes spreading out to wide open areas. It was nice to sit and watch the wildlife as well as locals fishing. There were plenty of birds around including kingfishers as well as eagles who we would sit and watch swooping down to skim the water for their dinner. There were lots of ducks, the odd cow, stray cats and dogs. Lots of locals stopping to watch as we rode slowly by. Children waving and asking us our names. We felt like royalty! There were also a couple of points along the way where there were HUGE evil mosquitos. I've never seen them so big. They seemed immune to our repellent so had to resort to wrapping myself in a towel at one stage!
 
Sadly for a good portion of the ride where local people are living right on the waters edge it wasn't very picturesque. Just the same as if their houses had been elsewhere they just throw their rubbish right outside and onto the river banks or straight into the water. We saw this happen a few times. The rivers edge therefore was pretty horrible in parts. Lots of plastic and none biodegradable stuff. Lots of rubbish floating in the water in these areas. To my horror we even saw a couple of guys turn up on one of the bridges crossing the river. They had two big bags of rubbish and they just dropped them both straight into the water ahead of us, all the contents emptying at they went. I couldn't believe it. I found it so upsetting. As we passed the floating mess we could see the bags had been full of plastic cups, banana leaves and paper. Waste from some local food stall we thought. Those plastic cups weren't going to be going anywhere. It's heartbreaking to think what these waters will be like in 20 years time if people continue to behave in this way because they are uneducated and the government does nothing to combat the problem. A terrible shame. 
 
Overall a good experience though. Nice to have some relaxing quiet time and be looked after and fed very well :). We didn't see a single other houseboat for the whole trip. We'd heard that in high season the backwaters get pretty crammed with boats. So it was nice to have the waters to ourselves :).