India 6 - Messing about in a boat and stuff

Hi folks, Jock and Zeke here signing off for the last time for a while - everyone say ahh!

Well, the next morning the nice paddly man came and paddled and took us back to Mr Shijo and our car, and we thought, well that was fun what next?

"We're not leaving the waters just yet boys," said the crew (see we're getting nauticalical again). (Ahem, don't give up the day job just yet.) 

Whatever, that's what was said, so we watched out the winder of the car and quite soon Zeke was leaping up and down and pointing, "Look Jock, look everyone, another neffalent!"  And we looked and there was a neffalent, another neffalent, a HUGE neffalent. It was just a-strolling along in the mididdle of all the traffic. It was a tusker with his mahout perched on his shoulders and carrying a huge bundle of greenery - almost a whole tree.  Mr Shijo explained that it was its food that the tusker was carrying, but how could you live on a tree? Apparently that's what neffalents eat, but it looked quite chewy if you ask me.

That was an unexpected tocitement and after a bit more driving and getting snarled up in traffic in Aleppy, we arrived at the boatyard to see our floating home for the next two days.  This isn't our houseboat, but ours was quite like it.

We were soon aboard and just a-cruisin along. Mr Captain was sitting up front with his steering wheel and we managed to sit on some cushions just behind him so we could see all the world floating by.

We were quite settled, when one of the crew decided that they needed the cushions to stretch out and watch the world go by.  All I can say is that watching must be very tiring 'cos very soon she was all tuckered out and was zizzing away.  Well, we can symphonise, it can get quite hard work, we do it and we like our zizzes too.

We had our own real crew on the boat and Mr Cook gave us lovely, tasty, scrumptious food. This meal was chicken biriani and it just goes to show which came first. The chicken or the egg?  Have you guessed yet? No? The both come at the ams time, along with poppadoms, vegetables and minty sauce. See, we don't know why it's such a mystery.





One of the nice things is that Alan got to bring his own bottles of beer. At this meal it looks like Zeke only got water, but he didn't.


See, we got to share it really.

After we had eaten our fill it was time for more serious watching the very busy world go by. It was hard work, but someone had to do it 'cos the humins seemed to drift off and sleep at the drop of a hat. 

We had great fun watching everyone out and about on the waterways. Most people seemed to get around by canoe. Can you imagine taking a canoe to go for your messages? Yes, going shopping was a bit more complicated than most of us would think. You have to pay a man a few pennies so he will paddle you to the other side of the water, and then you can walk along the banks to the village. It certainly makes you think before you set off.  There was no sign of Mr Sainsbury's delivery boats that's for sure.

 It wasn't all sunshine of course and we did get some rain. Until it got really really heavy this was Mr Captain's wet weather gear.

Soon we tied up for the night and Mr Cook gave us duck. Yummy it was though the staff said that there wasn't too much meat on an Indian duck.






Next morning we set off after brekkers of curry and fruit and we cruised along in great style.  From time to time along the banks we saw duck in flocks and men in canoes herding them along the waterway.

Can you see what the dark band in the water with a man in a canoe behind it?  Well, that's ducks. thousands and thousands of ducks, stretching right across the waterway - at least 400m.

Mr Captain headed straight for the middle of the flock and we clapped our paws over our eyes, but it parted miraculously to let us through, though the duckies made a LOT of noise as they got out of the way!  The boat was going slowly so they had plenty of time to get moving, "Qauck, quack, ack, ack, QUAAAACK, rackety, ickety rackety, quack!" My, what a noise, and all that water was churned up as they paddled away. When we went to the back of the boat, the flock had formed up again from bank to bank none the worse for their experience.

Soon it was time for lunch - well you know, watching all those ducks made us quite peckish, but our toventures weren't over yet, 'cos we had things to do afterwards.

We met up with another big houseboat with two n=more humins in it and a big canoe and we all jumped aboard the canoe, though Ann did struggle a bit getting down into it 'cos she says her legs were too short.  Our legs are much shorter and we had no bother at all!  Ahem, might that have something to do with you being inside my bag? Welllll, we aspose so, but soon we were all aboard and off we went up a side canal.
It was just like going through a village, except here the road was the canal.  There were children playing and the waved to us . Of course, we waved back, that was only polite. Up in the trees the birds were calling, calling and they were very pretty.  We think we could have liked to visit that village, but we just putted along in our canoe and soon we came back out where our houseboat was waiting for us.

A little later on when Mr Captain wasn't there we thought we'd see what it was like sitting in his seat. It was quite comfy, but we couldn't see past the wheel, so we just clambered up and sat in front of instead. It was a good view, but we decided that maybe we'd get into trouble if we decide to drive off.  You bet! We'd have all been sent home in disgrace, so I'm glad you weren't too tempted.



Soon it was time to settle down for the evening, while Mr Cook cooked, his nibs went for a walk to see the birds (and get well chewed on by the insects) and on the way back he stopped to get the sunset. Wasn't it lovely?

There were no pictures taken of dinner, but it was yummy as ever and washed down with a nice bottle of wine.



Next morning Zeke and I had a lovely surprise, 'cos there on the table were our own wee boats. We sat in them, but they didn't seem to be going anywhere until we realised that they were a cunningly folded napkin and we had to move so that we could get our breakfast.

Dosas,  yum and sambar - vegetable curry - with coconut chutney, and for juice it was creamy grape juice. Just thinking about it makes our tummies rumble in unison (Mine too, mine too!) Curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner, sounds a lot, but we soon got used to it. One morning we had uppuma, tapioca cooked like couscous with saffron, vegetables and chillies and served with Zeke and Jock sized bananas.  Yummy too, but eaten before a photo could be taken.

Soon we had to say goodbye to our real crew, from left to right, Mr Cook, Mr Engineer and Mr Captain, three lovely people who looked after us so well.

Then we headed off in Kochi, or Cochin as it used to be called.














On the way Mr Shijo took us to the beach where we could look out at the Arabian Sea. Can you see the fishing boats behind us. There were a lovely shape and sometimes quite colourful.









When we'd looked at the boats and Ann had got herself all wet - she went for a paddle that almost turned into a swim - we went past lots of interesting places.  We got to see some smashing birds like this Brahmini kite. Isn't it big?  We kept inside the car when it was around, 'cos you never know when little bears can just look like little snackerals do you?


This is our last hotel, and just below you can see us sitting on our balcony wall looking out at all the hustle and bustle of the harbour.

Inside, our room had a great big high bed, that even Alan needed a step to get onto. We got given lovely little bunches of jasmine flowers and they smelled so sweet.  Meanwhile, above our bed was an embroidery with a tree on it. In the tree were birds and bats and bees, and Ann and Alan wanted to take it home, but thought that people might notice, which is a shame, 'cos it would look so nice on our wall too.

After a light lunch it was time for a tour of Kochi and low and tohold there were more neffalents.  We thought that this one was very friendly looking. It was there to take part in a festival and in the evening it would be all dressed up, but we didn't get to see that 'cos it was past our bed time.  We went for two walks, one with a nice Mr Roy, who showed us the nephalents and one with Alan when we saw the Chinese fishing nets again. We even got to see men catching fishes.
In the evening we got to see a nice man cooking fish molee, very very tasty and we followed up with a really tasty dinner from the fish menu. His Nibs had lobster massala and Ann had king prawns.  Yummyness personified.

Next morning was our last day - oh dear we were enjoying ourselves. We decided that it was time for a swim - well maybe Alan did 'cos water and bounce fill doesn't mix. So we sat on the dolphin's back and when it got too sunny, we sat under the brolly. My it was hot - about 40C - that's 100F for you souls who don't do celcius.

After we'd been to see the men catching the fish for people's dinners we came back and Alan had a shower and changed into his glad rags. "What are we doing that's you're all dressed up? Huh?"
"We're off to see some special dancers and then we're going to have our final dinner in the History Restaurant."
Here's on of the Kathakali Dancers that we went to see. He's a prince of heaven. Doesn't he look amazing?

Soon we wended our way back to the hotel, and up to the History Restaurant. Starters included prawns with beetroot puree. Naturally being the last night we had to have bottle of wine.

Main courses arrived and Alan and I shared a First Class Railway Mutton Curry.

He had to stop me from diving into that sauce.












Ann and Zeke kept to fish and had a lovely dish with pomegranate seeds in it. It was a fitting end to a fantastic holiday.  Next day we were up early, early and off to the airport for our flights home.








There are just a few things to say. We loved Karnataka and Kerala. (You haven't guessed have you?) The people were friendly, the food was fantastic and the scenery wonderful.  Thank you so much to our guides and most especially to Mr Shijo our driver. He was safe and reliable and had so much knowledge of the country and it's wildlife. He made the holiday.

We'll just leave you with a sunset on the backwaters. We will have to wait to go back, but we are already planning.

Hugs,

Jock, Zeke and the humins

India Part 5 - Spicy talk and down by the waterside

Alan has pointed out that all the tocitement with the nephalents actually took two days, but it felt like one big long day, so it doesn't really matter.  In the middle we went to a spice farm, and for lunch Alan had some special tea.

You all know that coffee smells of jasmine, but how do spices grow? Don't say, "In the ground," 'cos I know that, but it's the higgledy piggledy every which way that matters.

Nutmeg grows on trees, pepper - achoo - grows up trees, as does vanilla, allspice is a tree, cloves are flower buds, cinnamon is tree bark and cardamom pods grow on stalks under the leafy plant. When you go to see them growing it's amazing, 'cos there's no apparent rhyme or reason on why one grows where and another grows there.  But it's all very cunningly done.

Coffee and cardamom need shade, so you grow trees that will provide it. You can grow pepper and vanilla vines up the tall trees and in the spaces you can grow the smaller bushy trees like nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. In even smaller spaces you can grow allspice bushes and piripiri pepper plants, turmeric and ginger too, and even cocoa for chocklit!

Pick and crush an allspice leaf here and sniff the heady scent, bite a clove bud there and you find it has almost no taste until it's dried. Then crush a peppercorn and see your hands go red. Bite into the fresh peppercorn and feel your mouth explode with the perfumed heat, then pick the seeds from a fresh green cardamom and experience the fragrant taste straight from the plant. Around and about are other little plants to keep the bees busy all year.

Here are some pictures of spices and things:

Here's a man up a bamboo ladder picking pepper, and that's pepper before it's ripe. It goes red before you pick it.  The red pepper is dried to make black pepper, but the outer red skin is removed to get at the seed and that makes white pepper.

 Here's nutmeg on its tree.

Inside the fruit there is some soft flesh that you can make chutney from. The red stuff is mace wrapped around the seed shell. Inside that is the nutmeg.

This is a whole hillside of cardamom with pepper vines growing up the tall shade trees.











Here are more cardamoms with a young banana plant growing in front of the bushes and in-between is a very tiny and very hot piripiri pepper

Cardamom flowers grow on shoots from the ground and the are very pretty. If you hold one up it looks like the whole plant.  In between the stem you can see the pods that will be picked.

Cloves grow in bunches on trees and they are picked before the buds open.  These have very little flavour until they are dried. We are used to black cloves, but the best ones are reddish brown.

On trees nearby grow little rose apples.  These are tasty but very very sharp. In any spare ground the farmers also grow roses so that they can extract the oil for perfumes and the flowers get used for garlands too.

Finally these are cocoa pods, and when they grow ripe they pick them and make chocolate. 

Cor, wasn't that amazing and then we went for lunch in an interesting little restaurant. Alan had special tea with his food.  It came in a teapot and he drank it out of a china cup.  Funny though it didn't smell of tea and when peaked into the cup it was very pale for tea, and it was definitely fizzy. "Here," I said, "That's really special tea alright - it's beer."  "Shhhh!" said Alan," we have to call it tea because they haven't got a licence. So it's special, Kingfisher tea."  

Coo flip, we had a smashing time in Periyar, but then we had to go and leave the nephalents behind. Everyone say, "Ahh." We didn't know it but we would see them again, but that's a story for another time.

The next morning we were up nice and early to head off to our next destination.  You've seen the coffee and spices, so here's a glimpse of some tea on the hoof.  Alan laughed when he saw that the tea estate was called the Connemara Tea Estate. I don't know why it was funny, something to do with that being a part of Ireland. Indeed it is, way out in the west and seldom as hot as Kerala!





After we came down from the hills we drove for ages and ages, and when we stopped a nice man in a canoe was waiting for us and he punted us across to where we were staying.  This is our room.








And here we are sitting on the half door enjoying the view across the water.

When all that looking got too much we sat on our comfy chair and watch more of the world going by and listened to the birds

When evening came the nice man with his boat came back and we had a sunset cruise.  First we had a look behind us and then we turned around to see where we were going.

We went out into the lake near the Chinese fishing nets.  No, I don't know why they are Chinese either 'cos there were definitely no Chinese people there.  While we were puzzling with that the sun dipped towards the horizon and his nibs took lots of pictures.

We had lots of lovely meals there and while we ate we sat with the other guests around a huge enormous table with a great big turntable this on it. Ann says it's called a Lazy Susan, but there was no-one called Susan there so I spect she left it behind. Next day when it was late morning we snuck back in and clambered up.

Well we had to sit on it of course and then we got to go whee, round and round on it. 

First Zeke got dizzy.

Then I got dizzy.

hen we BOTH got dizzy.  Tee hee, what fun it was until the humins came and said could they have it back please, because it was time for lunch. 

 After lunch we sat in the sun and caught some rays, and we saw some lovely flowers that smelled wonderful.  They're called frangipani and we think they made us look quite festive and smart.

Next morning we got up early early while all the birds were singing, and we watched a man carry a basket of coconuts on his head from the farm and load them into a canoe. Then another man came and took the coconuts to market.

Here's a video of him. We wanted you to hear the birds and the music wafting over the water from the temple. It takes us all back, 'cept for Ann who was still in her bed!

Anyway bears and peeps, that's all for this time.  Just one more story about messing about in boats and living in a boatyard.

Hugs,

Jock and Zeke