Today we arrived in Alleppey which is around 2hrs by train north of Varkala, Alleppey is the most popular place in the whole of India to explore the Keralan backwaters (which are a network of water canals and lakes that cover a large area of Kerala's inland) by Ricebarge/Houseboat - it's a bit like Venice but more tropical. We were up at 5am ready in time to catch our 6.30am train, we have realised that getting up early to travel is far more comfortable as you don't sweat your nuts off as much and its far less busy.So we arrived in Alleppey and headed straight to our homestay that was recommended to us by our Swiss friends, we ended up paying 200rps a night for a bamboo hut which was really pleasant.After checking in we decided to spend the afternoon around the townchecking out prices for a houseboat/ricebarge as this apparently is a must if you come to this area.Anyway, after visiting various tourist information centres it looked as if we would be looking to pay around 4000rps (around £60) to charter our own houseboat for 24hrs, but Laura being the bargain hunter she is thought that if we headed to the harbour where the boats take off from, we could approach them direct and get a better deal... so we did.After seeing lots of different types and sizes we bumped into another English couple who were doing the same thing so we started chatting and found that if we got a bigger 2/3 berth boat we could get a better price.We later met the same couple for dinner and arranged to meet them first thing in the morning so we could get up there early and get the best deal.We got to the harbour and found a fantastic 3 berth big house boat that we could get for 7000rps between us, we the found a third English couple to fill the third room which then brought the cost down further, so in the end we ended up paying 3000rps per couple (around £40) which apparently is really good value.We loaded up our gear and set sail at 11.30am and headed into the Keralan backwaters.Our boat was really nice with 3 double bedrooms(one of which is the master suite on the upper deck on its own with its own balcony) 2 balcony/lounge areas, a driver, a chef and a waiter.We decided we was going to pick a card from a deck to see who would have the Master suite and guess who got it... WE DID!!!Yeay! Well done Laura as she picked our card and it was the highest!!!Cruising the backwaters was really nice, we stopped off after a hour or so at a small fishing village to get our fish for lunch, we then later did the same to get our chicken for dinner!! We cruised for around 7 hours in the most beautiful backwater scenery before mooring up for the night at another small fishing village.When we moored up we decided to pay a young village lad 200rps to take four of us in a small canoe around the really narrow back canals for a hour... I ended up canoeing most of the way with him!When we got back we had dinner and drank beer whilst we lay on the upper deck under the moonlight and watched the hundreds of Fireflies that lit up the sky like tiny stars (and of course Laura had to catch one to play with)!!! We woke up at 8am and had a traditional Keralan breakfast called puddu (steamed wheat and coconut which can be served with curry or banana and sugar - we opted for the latter, which is apparently how Indian babies have it!) and omelettes before heading back to the harbour at around 9.30am... it was a really nice trip! We then headed to the bus station so we could get the bus to our next destination north!!! To be continued...!Miss you all x x x