Alleppey

Bus Stop

Alleppey is famed for its backwaters.  It is considered to be the oldest planned town in the Kerala region.  At this part of the trip it began to get very hot.

Waiting for the school bus

Houseboat

Morning ritual *note mirror on wall

The backwaters were beautiful, and we got to see an alternative lifestyle. 







Alleppey itself is situated around 2 canals, the North and South canals.


We went to see a Coir factory, Coir is a natural fibre extracted from the husk of coconut and is used to produce floor mats, brushes and mattresses.  It was fascinating to see a traditional craft still being practiced to this day, and the workers were more than happy to show us around.

Here the Coir shuttles are moved by hand

Use of the feet is required to operate the machine

Detail of the fabric

Here the coconut husk is put into the rope by hand

A machine that thrashes the coconut husk to make the fibres for the Coir

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An example of the labor-intensive method of Coir making, the fibres are twisted by hand to create the basis for the material

Alleppey Beach

 There was a beach we visited, which had a huge military style Mercedes vehicle on it, which we noticed had a Danish license plate on it.  The owners had apparently been travelling for over a year and had stayed there for 5 days.

The Danish van... well traveled