Part of our package with the Golden Waters Resort is an overnight tour on a Rice Boat. We are taken to the boat over a rutted out old road in a three wheeler “auto” which is basically the 2-stroke golf cart type thing that serves as a taxi in most cities in India. Gives us a chance to look at the people living in the woods around here as we bounce by. We have a captain and a cook and then just us. It comes with a double bedroom with air conditioning and attached bathroom/shower. We board around noon and we are each given a coconut with its top cut off and a straw shoved in. A man is on the top of the boat next to ours and he’s splitting canes with his machete to repair the thatched roof. These old rice boats have been converted into 1* hotels. We set off across Lake Vambanad to explore some of the 900km of inland waterways and see a way of life that hasn’t changed in centuries. Women are pounding washing on rocks, villagers are collecting cashew and coco nuts and loading them into boats. The large cantilevered fishing nets stand at the ready all along the shore amongst the palm trees. A vegetarian lunch is served on the foredeck. No alcohol on board. The usual evening storm will hit around 5.00pm (we can see it coming at us across the lake), we’ll have dinner and turn in early-no choice here but to relax and take it slowly.
I sit up with Captain Sigi and try to hold a conversation but his English isn’t understandable. At 4.00pm we are served overly sweetened tea with chips (fried potatoes). Sigi is all the time on his cell phone talking with his fiancé, he’s getting married next January. As in Egypt they seem to have some sort of - - $30/year and you can talk all you want -- deal, we are being gouged in the US.
The storm hits and we pull up against some trees for the night. Sigi offers us a “Toddy”-now we know where the phrase comes from. It turns out it’s made by the guy who lives in the shack on the bank and costs 100 rupees. This is true moonshine I think and we keep patting our heads and stomachs and asking him if it’s OK for us. It’s a natural coconut liquor. I make Sigi take it first and then check his pulse, then we try it. It’s bloody awful and we stop after a thimbleful. Water will be fine thank-you, we give the jar back to Sigi for him to drink and try not to offend him. 5 minutes later Christine reads me the following from the Lonely Planet, page 87:
“An estimated ¾ of India’s drinking population quaffs “country liquor” such as the notorious arak liquor made from coconut palm sap, potatoes or rice of the south. (i.e. Kerala where we are now). This is the poor man’s drink and millions are addicted to the stuff. Each year, many people are blinded or even killed by the methyl alcohol in illegal arak.” I have to learn to read first and act later.
It’s dark now and the insects are out hunting, we are covered in Deet.
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