Kollam · Kerala
Ashtamudi, Munroe Thuruthu and Alumkadavu
Eight creeks, a sinking island, and the village where the houseboat was invented.
When to come
November to March. Come out of the monsoon and the canals are at their fullest.
How long
One or two, usually on the way between Trivandrum and the backwaters.
Getting there
Kollam is an hour and a half south of Alappuzha and two hours north of Trivandrum airport.
Ashtamudi means eight-branched, which is what the lake is: eight arms of water reaching inland from Kollam town, quieter than Vembanad and used by people rather than visitors. The Chinese nets work here, the ferries are ferries rather than excursions, and the coir is still retted in the shallows.
Munroe Thuruthu is the reason to come. Eight islets where the Kallada river meets the lake, cut through by canals too narrow for anything but a canoe — you go at first light, with a man poling from the back, under coconut palms and past houses whose front step is the water. The land is slowly subsiding, which is why the old houses stand lower each year and why it should be seen now rather than later.
Alumkadavu is ours. It is where the kettuvallam was built for the rice trade, where Babu Varghese converted the first one into something with a bedroom in it in the nineties, and where our founder was working while it happened. The boatyards are still there and still making them the same way, stitched with coir rather than nailed.
Kollam, in photographs
Worth your time, or not?
Tell us how many days you have and who is coming, and we will tell you whether Kollam belongs in them — and what to leave out to make room for it.