5 stops over 8 days

Kochi
Vaikom
Kumarakom
Nattakam
Alleppey

Dawn among darters and night herons at Kumarakom
Karimeen pollichathu cooked in banana leaf on deck
Punting the narrow Nattakam canals by dugout canoe
Coir spun by hand at Alappuzha’s retting yards
Rice grown two metres below sea level in Kuttanad

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 8 days
Stops: 5
Pace: Gentle
From: ₹3,85,000

1D

Fort Kochi

Arrive in Fort Kochi

Land at Kochi and cross to Fort Kochi, forty minutes by road or twenty by boat if the tide suits. The rest of the day is unplanned. Walk to the Chinese nets at five when they are hauled for the evening, buy a pomfret off the rack and have it fried at one of the stalls. Kathakali at seven if you want it.

Night: Brunton Boatyard, Fort Kochi
2B L D

Kochi

Mattancherry, then aboard

Morning in Mattancherry: the Dutch Palace murals — the Ramayana in vegetable dye across two rooms — the Paradesi synagogue with its blue Cantonese tiles, and the spice godowns on Jew Town Road, where the smell of ginger and cardamom is doing the selling. You board at Bolgatty jetty after lunch and slip south into Vembanad on the afternoon tide.

Night: Overnight on board
3B L D

Vaikom

Vaikom and the toddy tapper

Vaikom’s Mahadeva temple is one of the oldest in Kerala and the site of the 1924 satyagraha that opened its approach roads to everyone; the outer courtyard is open to you, the sanctum is not. Later, a coconut climber shows how toddy is drawn at dawn and by four has turned sharp. Karimeen pollichathu for dinner, wrapped in banana leaf.

Night: Overnight on board
4B L D

Kumarakom

Dawn at the bird sanctuary

Out at six with a local guide into the fourteen acres of Kumarakom sanctuary — darter, night heron, and in winter the pintail and garganey that come down from Siberia. Breakfast back on board: appam and stew. In the afternoon a dugout canoe takes you into canals too narrow for the ship, past Chinese nets and school children punting home.

Night: Overnight on board
5B L D

Nattakam

Nattakam and the Kottayam hills

The ship moves to Nattakam, on the Kodoor river below Kottayam, where the water narrows and the banks close in with rubber and jackfruit. A morning walk takes you past latex cups strapped to the trees and into a Syrian Christian household for lunch — beef ularthiyathu, tapioca, buttermilk. Kottayam’s Cheriapally, with its Portuguese-influenced murals, in the late afternoon.

Night: Overnight on board
6B L D

Alappuzha

Down to Alappuzha

South across the open lake to Alappuzha, four hours with nothing but water and the odd rice barge. Ashore, the coir works: husks retted for months in the backwater, then spun into rope by women who can judge the twist by feel. At Punnamada you see the chundan vallam sheds, where the snake boats are kept oiled between August races.

Night: Overnight on board
7B L D

Kuttanad

Kuttanad, below the sea

A full day in Kuttanad, the only place in India where rice is farmed two metres below sea level behind mud bunds. You take a country boat up the Pamba to Champakulam, whose church claims a foundation in the fourth century, and see the duck herders move two thousand birds down a canal by whistle. Farewell dinner on deck.

Night: Overnight on board
8B

Alappuzha to Kochi

Disembark and depart

Disembark at Alappuzha after breakfast. It is ninety minutes by road to Cochin International, north through Cherthala and the Vytilla junction traffic, so we leave with margin. If your flight is an evening one there is time for a last hour at Marari beach, or a shower and lunch at a day-use room. Departure day.

Night: Departure day — no overnight