Kerala is famous for backwater cruises and Allepey is the town where most of them start from. So we went to Allepey!

Most of the boats have one or two bedrooms, ours had two but we had the boat to ourselves:

 Not our boat but they all look the same!

There are day trips or overnight trips, we decided on an overnight trip with just one night on the water, that was enough to see lots of sights:

 A school boat

 Travelling in comfort

Sometimes the river can be a very scary place:

I was comforted by the sight of a boat full of nuns, with them on the water nothing could possibly go wrong!

Our house guest for a large part of the trip:

We stopped cruising at 5:30 in the afternoon, our cook went for a swim:

and we went for a walk. This was a very interesting bridge supported on two boats:

We found a little shop and bought a few things, this was the shop, the shopkeeper and her son:

Not much chance of selling her any inventory control software!

We walked on until we reached a local temple where they were holding a twelve day festival, here is Ganesh, the elephant God, dressed for the festivities:

In the morning all the boats converge on Allepey at more or less the same time (9am), the river gets pretty congested:

So did Leishia enjoy the trip? You decide: