Alleppey

Alleppey is referred to as the "Venice of the East" because of the extensive network of canals...although that is about where the similarity ends (I imagine, never having been to Venice). Our hotel is my favorite of the entire trip, and it's nice to be at the end when we are getting a bit road-weary. It is called Raheem Residency and is a small boutique hotel converted elyfrom a private residence built over a century ago. It has just 10-12 rooms and the service is very individuadlized. As soon as we arrived there was no laborious check-in: they knew who we were, asked us to be seated in teh living room, brought a lovely refreshing minty-limey chilled tea, etc. The setting is beautiful, furnished with antiques and interesting touches, yet has all the modern conveniences (AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!)
It took us awhile to figure out how to lock our door from inside. On the outside there is an old-fashioned looking heavy padlock. When you go inside, the double heavy wooden doors close and you then slide 4 long wooden panels across like an old fortress. I felt like I was barring the castle door. There is no extra charge for the geckos in the room (Miriam was not quite as fond of them as I am.)

This morning we went on a 3-hour leisurely boat ride through the canals of Alleppey, watching the tyupical village life take place - bathing, washing clothes and cooking pots, catching and selling and scaling/cleaning fish, there even was a "floating store" - a boat that cruises around with various items for sale. One experience we won't have on this trip is a stay in a houseboat - of which there are many, many, many in the area - ranging from 1-bedroom love nests to large 4-bedroom boats. They are fully air conditioned and come with a staff of 4 to meet your every need: captain, cook, maid, and - well I don't know what the 4th person does, but Shakkeer (our driver) told us there are 4 staff. It could be a great way to relax.
Tomorrow we may (still not sure) visit an elephan orphanage that care for elephans that were wounded in the wild and need rehabilitation..will keep you posted on that. We had a bit of a scare when Shakkeer told us that the petrol tankers are on strike (or some branch of the distribution system) and we could see the line snaking for 2 blocks of people trying to buy gas from the one pump that still had a supply. Fortunately while we did a bit of afternoon shopping, Shakkeer was able to fuel up - though he said it took a full hour! We should be in good shape for the rest of the trip.

So - our latesty culinaray adventure has been the discovery that many restaurants serve a "thali" at lunch time. A large round stainless steel tray contains an assortment of small portions of curries, dals, pickles, yogurt, soup, served with rice, bread, dessert, etc. We were impressed with our 1st one in Kanyakumari which featured 17 different items for what we thought was the ridiculously low price of 120 rupees (less than $2.50 - in an Indian restaurant Alleppey at a nice clean restaurant and had their 14-15 item thali for 50 ruppes ($1)!!! Today we went to a restaurant here - where the thali (again about 14 items) started to sound expensive (not really) at 90 rupees! All were delicious and way more food than either of us could possibly consume. By the way - in Kerala they serve "Kerala rice" which is a brown rice that is soaked and parboiled first. Then when it's cooked and served it had thick puffy grains that have a bit of a reddish tint in places. I'm hoping that it has more nutrition, as the husk hasn't been removed, since we aren't getting a ton of protein. In any case - it's nice to try the local specialty.