Kerala Trip. Day 1. Allepey

I arrived at the Kochi International Airport all tired and weary after a nights journey to Chennai and then to Kochi. It was a bright morning with the sun shining warmly as I walked out of the airport.After much asking around I caught a bus leaving for the city.It was the most convenient and cheapest way for me. Bhanu was joining me for this weekend trip and was waiting for me at the city bus stand from where we planned to take the state transport bus to Allepey.

We reached Allepey around 12 noon. The warm sunlight of the morning turned harsh now and by the time we walked to our hotel by the beach side we were soaked wet with sweat. After the formalities of checking in, we were greeted with the most awesome view of the beach from our room balcony. We just stood there for some time taking in the sight.

Later after a refreshing bath we went out to take a stroll around the canal ridden town. The sun was still strong over head and we started perspiring again. Presently we came across a juice vendor and we bought a bottle of mazaa. There we met a man in crisp shirt pant who asked us if we had done boating yet. Maybe he overheard us talking in Hindi and correctly assumed us to be tourists. We had a discussion with him and decided to hire a boat from him. We booked it for 2 hours and it cost us Rs 1200.

His boat was parked in the canal running right across the road. A 'driver' was waiting for us and after checking his credentials (just to be safe) we started off on our leisurely crawl along the canal.It was mesmerizing. At first we were in a crowded part of the canal. Our boat made its way past other boats parked along both sides of the canal and under a bridge. We passed by passenger boats run by the Government, then we spotted a couple of hospital boats that looked like they were abandoned long ago. Slowly we came out in the open into the huge Great Backwaters. The boat crawled along the smooth water in a relaxed manner. We were seated comfortably on a sofa and the calmness around me was lulling me to sleep.I even fell asleep sometime later only to be woken up by the horn of another boat passing us.There was only one stop at a small hotel where we had a nice strong cup of coffee. Our boat trip winded up 2 hours later and the boatman dropped us near the bus stand.

After this relaxing boat ride we took an auto to the lighthouse. This was quite an old lighthouse. To our surprise there was a small museum attached there. At the top a few people were already there enjoying the evening breeze. We sat here for some time taking in the views. Later we checked out the museum. It is spread out in a small space, the size of a small room and contains equipment used in the old lighthouse. There was a long telescope which is the only thing I found of interest. From there we went to the beach nearby. There was a huge crowd here. We started walking on the beach in the direction of our beach hotel. As soon as we were just in front of our room we sat on the sand and waited for the sunset. Soon the sky turned orange and the sun set, slowly departing into the depths of the sea. This was a completion of a minor milestone for me. For many years I had seen the sunrise on the eastern beaches of Puri, Digha, Vizag, Machilipatnam and Mypadu. Now I had seen a sunset from the western beach. The loop was closed now.

From there we went back to our room.Got some rest and started planning for dinner. On checking the net we found that Halais restaurant was the best one to check out the local non veg fare. So off we went to Halais. We ordered some four different types of items including chicken,mutton,fish and prawns. Back in the hotel ,we settled down in the balcony and had a hearty meal. The food was delicious. All this food soon made us sleepy and we decided to call it a day and slept by 11pm.