We went to the backwaters of Kerala and took a boat trip. The Lonely Planet ranks this as one of the "must do's" of South India. While it was beautiful, we felt like the boat trips were a little overpriced and boring. The next day we took a local ferry boat through the backwaters from one town to the next and it was more scenic than the tourist boat track, and cost about 1% of what we paid. Ah well.

It was like the everglades, but with people living everywhere.
The other option was to rent a house boat overnight. They feed you and you just kick it on the deck all day. This was beyond our budget, though, so we opted for the cheapest option- a punted "snakeboat". It turned out to be too small to stand up or move in and not very comfortable.

We were not amused.



Backwater Life.

Our pilot's name was "Gumily", which we thought was unfortunate, because it rhymes with "Googily", which is what his eyes were.

I think he should have invested in a hat to protect his brain from the sun. About 20 years ago.

Some local thugs.

Ren Posing for his Lonely Planet contributer "I'm really digging the local culture" photo