I am up early and notice with a slight regret that my house and yard cockroach has not survived the night. It has fallen prey to a sneak attack by the tiny killer ants.
That's life - wild and mostly fatal.
I eat breakfast in "my" restaurant before moving towards the landing stage of the boat. It's an old barge, dirty windows, run down seats. It's slowly filling up with the leisurely arriving tourists. Two Japanese are there, silent and shy the whole tour. An elderly English lady arrives by bicycle, then two young Swedes, a good-looking Englishman, a group of Russian women and some others whose origins cannot be recognized at first glance.
Narrow bays and canals
The boat starts in time at 10.30, but only to do a bend on the lake and to dock again at the same place. Hard to understand, but the everyday marveling about the world in India is part of it. But then the tour starts.
The passengers move to the upper deck and let themselves drift for the next 8 hours leisurely through the backwaters. Sometimes we are almost on the open sea, then again on narrow bays and canals, along huts and houses built close to the water.
A different life
It's a glimpse into the lives of these people, how they live, cook outdoors, do the laundry, how the children play and romp around, the dogs bark and run after the ship. Slow Motion. The slow travel allows you to see and reflect, you have time to analyze and ponder about the differences to our lives. We are consciously or unconsciously voyeurs, but that' s basically everywhere on such journeys.
Solid ground
Drifting through the stagnant as well as flowing waters of the backwaters, you leave the known world behind. People are used to solid ground, to something they can hold on to. Not here, not in this surreal place where everything seems to float and blur. Of course, there are shores of supposed solidity, but as time goes by, one doubts this solidity, thinks of mirages, of phantoms. Nothing is certain anymore, not even one's own perception. Therefore, the announced break on firm ground is a welcome opportunity to check one's own perception. Is the ground truly solid? Don't you start to sink in as soon as you set foot on it?
Lunch eaten out of palm leaves
But, contrary to expectations, the ground turns out to be firm. With a quiet sigh of relief we are led to a kind of garden restaurant, of course not the way we know it, it is a tarpaulin under whose protective roof we are served a wonderful meal. There is rice and something yellow that tastes good, and all sorts of other, apparently local ingredients that are unknown to most of us. But it tastes excellent, even if we eat Indian-style with our hands.
Handicraft alive
Watching the women doing their work with great dignity, spinning and weaving and making baskets, we're full of admiration. In those moments, we realize that we are voyeurs, intruders in their world. That they will never understand what we are doing here, what we hope to find here. As usual in these cases, it's a mixture of admiration, pity and shame, and we can't deal with this unsettling mixture. These are the moments when we start wondering about the purpose of traveling. But perhaps it is precisely these moments that define the meaning of travel. That it is not about travel as an end in itself, but always involves a search. Which in most cases you don't even understand yourself.
Then we move on, the hours go by, it is relaxing, meditative, sitting at the railing lost in thought. The Indian life and one's own life glide by in front of the real and the inner eye, peace and quiet arise, pleasant thoughts, everything busy disappears ...
And so we reach Alleppey at six o'clock in the evening, a quick goodbye to my temporary friends and then I'm on the bus back to Kollam. And again it is a hell ride like many before and many to come. A great peaceful day comes to an end with the sun sinking into the ocean ...
P.S. Matching Song: Maroon 5 - Come away to the water (out Hunger Games)
And here the journey continues ...
