My friend and I decided to take a short vacation with family and the first thing in mind was backwaters in Kerala. We had spoken about it earlier, and decided this was the time to do it. We have a lot of common Mallu friends, checked with them and in fact, one of our friends had a friend in Kerala who owns a houseboat. So the most important thing was fixed. Then we booked the train tickets through IRCTC and then we also made a reservation in a resort and we were good to go. 🙂
We reached Alleppey station and proceeded to the boat jetty by auto. There were so many houseboats parked and we were hoping to get into one of them, but it didn’t happen that way 🙂 We had to take another small boat and that took us to ‘our’ houseboat. It was a first-time experience for both of us, so we were quite eager to get on board. The houseboat was spacious, clean and well-maintained. There was a Hall cum dining, 2 bedrooms with attached bathrooms, a kitchen. It was so exciting that we were all looking at the lake, houseboats, scenic views and the beautiful nature. As time passed, our enthusiasm came to acceptable levels and that’s when we realized that this is what we are going to see for one full day 🙂
There were three persons on board with us, a driver/captain, a cook and a helper. They were very friendly, and did their best to make us feel comfortable. Since my friend and his family are vegetarians, we decided to stick to vegetarian meals in the boat. The cook made an awesome lunch in about an hour or two after we started. Absolutely yummy food with a typical touch of Kerala. We got snacks with tea in the evening and all the time pretty much lazily looked at the lake, houseboats, scenic views and the beautiful nature 🙂
We parked the boat around 17:30 and were told that we would again start only the next morning around 07:00 hrs. There were two other houseboats parked beside us. Had a nice view of the sunset, kids had a good time too. As our dinner started to get ready, we sat with the kids playing some cards and this is when we won a well-fought battle with the mosquitoes. We were prepared to an extent, applied Odomos cream to all the kids first and then to ourselves, but the mosquitoes seemed absolutely not bothered by it and attacked. After a couple of hours, it got slightly better, that was probably because we got used to it or the mosquitoes were not hungry anymore. Then we had a quick dinner session and retired to our bed. The AC was switched on at 09:00PM and was going on until 06:00AM. The bedroom was just right and not one mosquito as the doors were closed. We had a good sleep and woke up fresh.
The breakfast was ready around 07:30AM. We got the traditional puttu and kadalakari with some bread and egg omlettes. It was wonderful. The cook who travelled with was really good at his job. While we were having our breakfast, we spotted our resort and then in about 30 minutes, we parked our boat and proceeded to the resort.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and definitely worth trying. In case you plan to go, just be a little more prepared to handle the mosquitoes, go with a known boat operator or at least the one who has good reviews on popular sites and things will be fine!
‘Sri Parvathy houseboats’ is the name of the Houseboat company.
Owner’s number – Vinu(Vinoo) – +91-8943837117
This is just a reference based on our wonderful experience, shared with an intention that you also have a similar experience. I have read a lot of reviews about how a pathetic houseboat experience screwed up vacations. Hence choose wisely!
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