India: Houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala!!!

I have a few more posts from my India trip from back in November and then I will start posting the pictures from my recent trip to Peru!!! This time I am going to be more timely on the Peru pictures and have them up by the end of the month.

Our next stop in our journey through India was an overnight trip on a houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala. The houseboat was so relaxing - we ate, we read, we ate more, we went on a canoe ride, we had a cooking lesson, and we played Phase 10! Shama and I had our own boat and there were three staff on the boat to take care of us - they were great! I will take you through our journey through our pictures. We used the company Lakes and Lagoons, I highly recommend them!

As we rode along on our boat in the backwaters, there was a lot going on - laundry...

...people taking baths...

...ladies doing their dishes...

...and laundry hung to dry outside of house.

This was the driver of our boat steering us along the calm backwaters.

Here's Shama relaxing in our living room in the front of the boat.

The kitchen at the back of the boat

Our cook bringing us a midday snack :)

This was our enclosed dining room. It was great at night because it kept us away from the mosquitos!

Our bedroom on the boat...we even had a TV and DVD player!

A full bathroom too!

Here are the locals on their boats, I can't remember what was being transported here...

Here are some locals walking between the backwaters and rice patties

Rice patty field workers, check out their hats!

Tending to the fields

All the food we ate...yummy banana chips

Our lunch - so many options!

Dinner!

Our cook taught us how to make one of the dishes we enjoyed...

I don't remember how to make it anymore!

School kids after school let out on a town of the backwaters (this is one of my favorite pictures!)

Instead of a bus, these kids take boats to get home after school

A church in a town we stopped along the water, it has been used in Bollywood films

Our canoe ride, our boat is in the background

I paddled for a minute until I gave up because I didn't know where we were going! The little boy came along for the ride with his uncle who owned the boat.

The view in the morning

We stopped at a local beach on our way to the airport. There were a lot of fishing boats.

Here are the fishermen with their fishing nets