Right after reaching Colombo, I dropped my passport at the Indian embassy where I was told I had to wait 7 days for a new visa...
Colombo being a pretty boring city, at least for me, I decided to move on the south coast of Sri Lanka again, and try to meet my fisherman friends in Tangalle. Unfortunately, and as I suspected, they were out fishing, so I just stayed 4 days in Tangalle, chilling on the beach and walking around city markets.

I finally got my Indian visa, and flew towards Trivanrdum in India, to finally meet my friend from Switzerland, whose name is... Phil!

We met in Varkala, a very touristic beach area, with dozens of fish restaurants, hotels and tour operators... Fortunately my friend already found a good accommodation so that saved me at least 2 hours! We spent the afternoon swimming in the transparent water and relate to each other our path over the past weeks. Varkala being really busy a way too touristic, we both agreed to leave the next day: We jumped on a train to Kollam, to visit the famous Kerala backwaters. Our first intention was to find a local boat to travel across the maze of canals. As soon as we reached the harbor we were assaulted by the usual tour operators selling all-inclusive packages. We talked to some of them and were offered to take a 24 hours cruise on a house-boat, with 2 crew members and a cooker...only for us! House boat was truly amazing: lounge area, fully equipped kitchen and a 5 stars hotel room with toilet and shower on board! After bargaining for at least 1 hour, we were able to almost halve the price to reach a reasonable price..and we jumped on board.
Minutes after leaving the harbor, the cook and another crew member started cooking for us. They kept cooking for at least 1 and a half hour while we were laying on the roof-top of boat, or in the room. Lunch was served: 8 different traditional Kerala vegetable dishes, with some curry, fresh fish and of course rice.
Certainly the best meal I had since I left Switzerland!
We kept sailing along beautiful small villages, where people are still living almost without electricity and current water. There are no roads, locals move from an island to another by paddling in small wooden canoe. Main activity here is fishing: including big basins to grow the the expensive tiger prawn. Life here is very rural, picturesque, and quiet although tourism is slowly taking over... As usual.

During the afternoon we were non-stop moving from main deck to kitchen, and from bedroom to roof-top enjoying the life on-board. Everything was so nice that we couldn't stay in the same place for more than 5 minutes.

We spent the night on the boat, after another delicious dinner. Sleeping on such an house boat, in the middle of a jungle with no noise at all (except mosquitoes) was very restful and remains one of the highlights of my trip so far.

After a last breakfast on-board we sailed back to the Kollam, where we had to leave the boat, which made both us a little sad... We wished we could have spend weeks on this boat.

Back to real life: we jumped on a crowded local bus for a 5 hours ride across bumpy Indian roads, breathing delicious clouds of dust and exhausts.
We reached Alleppey (Alappuzha for Indians), also known as the Indian Venice. Sometimes guidebook authors have a lot of fantasy, or maybe they simply don't go to some places.
If a typical Indian city, with only 2-3 canals full of rubbish is enough to be an Indian Venice, then I think there must be thousands of Venice worldwide.

We found a cheap place to stay, walked around Venice having some very refreshing fruits juice, and some less refreshing spicy curries.
Alleppey being another main gate to the backwaters, there was no particular reason for us to stay here, so we decided to move to the country-side, to seek for some mountains and fresh air.
We woke up 3.30am and walked 30 minutes across the city to reach the bus station. First time I saw India by night: the only time when nobody is around, except homeless sleeping on sidewalks. Also the only time when city is totally silent, and when one can walk around without the fear of being flatten by a bus.

We took the only daily bus towards Munnar. Luckily Phil and I were able to get 3 seats next to each other, so we lay down and finished our night on-board. Was like sleeping on a roller-coaster.

We are now in Munnar, where temperature is around 15°C, and we plan to keep moving along the mountain side of Kerala during the next days.