Alappuzha · Kerala
The backwaters and Marari
Vembanad, the canals that feed it, and the beach on the other side of the road.
When to come
November to March is the settled weather. June to August is the monsoon, which is beautiful and wet in equal measure, and cheaper.
How long
Three: one on a boat, two on the sand.
Getting there
Cochin airport to Alappuzha, 85km, about two hours. The train from Ernakulam does it in about an hour.
Alleppey is the town everyone means when they say backwaters. Canals through the middle of it, the rice barges moored along the bank, and behind it the whole system: a lake the size of a small county, the rivers coming into it, and the canals cut between them for the rice trade. People live on the banks the way people elsewhere live on a street. Boats are how the post arrives.
The right way to see it is slowly and from the water, which is what the kettuvallam was built for. One night aboard is the usual and it is enough; the second night is for people who have discovered they do not want to get off. Around the water there are farm islands and old teak houses where you sleep on land and take a boat out in the morning.
Ten kilometres west, Marari is what the coast was before anyone built on it: a fishing village, boats coming in at dawn, the catch sold on the sand. It is where people go after the boat, and where they stay longer than they planned.
Alappuzha, in photographs
Where we would put you
Worth your time, or not?
Tell us how many days you have and who is coming, and we will tell you whether Alappuzha belongs in them — and what to leave out to make room for it.