After the fun and frolics of Varkala, we headed for some more tranquil surroundings of Allepey and our Houseboat experience.

Only an hour up the train track we were soon at our overnight stop in the main town to check out the boats and deals for the next day. Searching for most of the afternoon we chose our boat which would be our floating hotel for the next day and night.

The morning arrived and as written in the guide books the deals on Houseboats are never as they seem but by now we are used to this in India and quickly chose a different boat.

The houseboat experience is brilliant, you have a full boat complete with livingroom, dining room, kitchen and upper loung deck and off you go around the backwaters (Canals). We spent the afternoon reading our books, listening to the ipod and watching the locals washing their clothes in the diesel filled waters.

After docking for the evening we sat and watched the new karate kid film (it was never going to be as good), a nice smiling bat flew are ound the living room as we sat back and relaxed, using the fireflys for light.

Next morning and the boat completed the last few kilometres back to the port where we transfered from boat to rickshaw to train to rickshaw before arriving at Fort Cochin.

Soom travellers rave about this Fort Cochin, how peaceful it is, how beautiful the colonial buildings are etc etc.. All we could see was a sleepy place with a good italian restaraunt and hundreds of kids playing on cricket on the parade grounds.

Not our kind of place and with time running out we decided 24hrs was enough for Forth Cochin and wanted to get back to real India.