Kerala
28.12.2009
27 °C
Nightswimming, as REM said, deserves a quiet night. We have come to Kerala in part to spend a day pottering around the canals and backwaters on an old converted fishing boat, and we have (finally) found peace and serenity in spades. Our boat is moored in the middle of a largeish lake, just big enough to see the uneven necklace of house lights around the circumference but inky black now an hour after dusk. We slip into the water and it's delightfully warm, noticeably less buoyant than the sea water we are used to splashing around in but studded with clumps of floating water lillies. It's very calming doing a couple of slow laps around the boat as the prerecorded pandit at the lakeside temple echoes his chants across the waters.
This is a hard-fought peace. We have fought our way (almost literally) tooth and claw up and down Kerala, battling the incompetent travel agent we have ended up on a tour with (for long and convoluted reasons), lazy drivers and breathtakingly rude hotel staff. It hasn't been a fun experience, not in the slightest. But maybe, hopefully, this is the tipping point. As we sit here the next morning doing nothing other than watch the lake slowly brighten as the sun slips above the treeline, I can just about believe it. Fingers crossed.
