WOW!!!
Allepey is the most beautiful place we have seen yet!!!!
We had a bus journey of 1.5 hours then a boat ride for about 1.5 hours, it was amazing views as we sailed along the river, the coconut and bannana trees all around us, locals washing clothes and themselves in the river as we passed, it was just beautiful scenery all around us, so calm and peaceful!!
We arrived at our homestay, not sure what to expect as we have seen how some of the locals in North India live, but we are staying in a gorgeous house, being fed home cooked meals which are really good, even Jonny is liking them haha!! Matthew is the name of the guy that owns the house, he has been so nice.
Our rooms are nice and clean although....Shay went to the toilet and found a big spider and was pretty scared, but we got told that there are no poisones spiders or snakes....Jonny still had to remove the spider from the toilet though haha!! Lunch was served when we arrived, which was really good, a coconut curry with rice followed by some yougurt desert with bananas which was also ace, but a bit too sweet for Shay's taste, Jonny loved it though! Matthew then took us for a walk around the island, explaining to us how vast an area the back waters are its hard to believe how extensive they are, 15,000 people live on this island, its insane. He explained how in the monsoon season the islands flood, so they have to build mud walls to protect their houses, but when he was a kid, him and his sister used to catch fish from sitting on their dining room table because the floods were so bad.....
We got shown round the rice fields, the local churches and he explained their way of life, was so good to see. Everyone here is so nice. After our walk we took some canoes back to Matthew's house, as we sailed along the river he taught us some old Malayalam (the launguage they speak here) songs, back in the olden days when the ladies used to work in the rice fields they would sing these songs. It happend to be sunset when we were sailing back to the house and it was the most beautiful thing to see. It was surreal to be sailing down a river in Allepey, singing Malayalam songs, watching the sunset......most amazing day so far!!
Tea was served at 8pm. The amount of flys and mosquitoes here are crazy.....never seen so many, the air was just swarming with them, Shay was concerned how we were going to eat on the balcony with so many flys.....their solution was to switch off the lights so you couldnt see what you were eating haha!! Another really good meal was served for tea, buffalo curry and some bananas for desert. When we switched on the lights after eating there must have been hundreds of flys on the table......made Shay feel quite sick lol.
We were shattered after tea so it was off to bed, only for Shay to find another spider in the toilet....this time it was bigger and too fast to catch so we had to leave it. We both didnt get the greatest sleep as we kept waking up thinking things were crawling on us haha.
Apart from all the flys, mosquiots and spiders. Allepey has been one of the best experiences so far and the most amazing scenery!! One night was enough though and we are looking forward to spending two nights in a tiger reserve next. Hope there are not so many mosquitos there, our bite counts are up to 15 for Shay and 6 for Jonny.....not good.
J+B