Backwater Boating

 So one of my days in Kerala, we went boating in search of somewhere to swim. When I first met the captain, he immediately started speaking to me in French. I managed for a little while but eventually gave up and switched to English. He said to me, "you don't speak French that often do you?" And I agreed that yes, it had been some time. While that's certainly true, I was really grappling with his accent. Malayalam sounds like a cross between Xena's war cry and change in a dryer. The tongue acrobatics that Malu's do are impressive and visible. So every other sentence I was hearing from this man, who's French was definitely better than mine was, "lelelulu lhelelulu maintenant".

The boat was a big dingy with plenty of room for the two drivers, and three passengers. On the way we stopped to pick up some delicious local food (photo 1). This consisted of fish fry, fish curry, tapioca mash and sting ray. All the dishes were great, and only made better by the fact that we were on a boat, and that eating with your hands is strongly encouraged (sorry mom, undoing years of training). To wash it down we had toddy, which is a slightly alcoholic fermented drink made out of coconut water ("cidre du coco", says our captain).

We went at least two hours down the backwaters in order to find a swimming hole because our qualifications were pretty specific. The water had to be shallow enough for Ammu, Vik's cousin, to be able to swim in, and deep enough for me to be able to swim in and empty, so that I wouldn't cause an incident in my bathing suit. Eventually we found a place that satisfied two out of three of our desires, and settled. It was perfect temperature, and got deep like a swimming pool. It was also a ferry crossing. Luckily after everyone in the tri-village area confirmed that yes, white people can swim, we were more or less left alone.

On our way back I dried off on the front of the boat. I could have been on the French rivierra, except that every time we went under a bridge, traffic literally stopped to peek at me. With my mild sunburn and moderate toddy buzz, it didn't bother me at all.

Love,
Violet