15/feb backwaters

I bargain a little bit for the ticket through the backwaters. Instead of 300 RS, I paid 260 RS. 2 meals. The boat goes from Kollam to Allappuzha, 8 hours, and… only with tourists. It has been nice, but maybe a little bit monotone. Canals, lakes and lagoons, not that clean, with fishes, and lots of jellyfishes, and chinese fishing nets. The main advertise for this backwaters trip. There’s a squared net hanging on 5 points; the 4 corners, and the center. A wooden structure, quite big, that works at counterbalance (contrapes), and a light in the middle of everything. They use to fish at night, leaving the net on the water, and attracting fished with the light. After a while, they lift the net, and the fishes are flying, on the net. There are lots of canoes, and fishing boats, black painted, and with drawings of ‘oms’, eyes… They look like the Viking boats, more or less. And lots of little houses everywhere. There are no bridges, not even small ones. Bathrooms, are a kind of small platform, over the water, with plastics as wall. And they shit directly to the water. There are lots of small churches, and signs announcing Christian associations, crosses… Portuguese and I think that also French, stayed in this area for a while, and this must be one of the influences.
Everything is so quiet, the boat is not noisy, the water is flat, there is a little bit of breeze, shadow… but I have a thai woman, half thai half French, asking me questions all the time, and speaking quite loud… I had dinner with a couple of Australians, from Melbourne. There are quite many falcons, or little eagles, with white heads and brown body, flying very elegantly. I met a guy from Portugal after lunch. Jorge, writer, 28 years, and very ‘traveled’. He is always making allusions to his trips, maybe a bit too much, but he’s nice and interesting. He told me that he’s now in India collecting information about the Indian cinema; bollywood (from Bombay), kellywood (from kerala), tallywood (tamil nadu)… He is going to write a book about that. It was nice speaking to him. We decided to look for a room together, but his budget is higher than mine, so we decided to had dinner together.
Nice relaxed and peaceful day!

19/2/05