The Alleppey backwaters beyond the houseboat

A houseboat is the best way to spend a night on the backwaters and a mediocre way to see them. It is a large vessel on the main channels of a system that is mostly narrow. A lot of what is interesting sits where a houseboat cannot go.

Take a shikara

A shikara is a small covered canoe, usually motorised, hired by the hour. It gets into canals a couple of metres wide, past houses where people are washing, children going to school by boat, coir being twisted from coconut husk, and toddy tappers working the palms. Two or three hours is plenty, and it is the part of Alleppey people talk about afterwards.

Walk the bunds

The paddy fields of Kuttanad sit below sea level, held back by earth bunds you can walk along. It is flat, quiet, and the only way to really understand what you have been cruising through. Farming below sea level is unusual anywhere in the world and this is one of the few places it is done at scale.

Alleppey or Kumarakom

• Alleppey has the wider lake, more boats and the town. Livelier, easier to reach, and where the boat race happens.
• Kumarakom is quieter and better for birds. The bird sanctuary is there, at its best from November to February.
• If you want one night on the water and one day seeing the area properly, base yourself in Alleppey.

The Nehru Trophy Boat Race

Snake boats with over a hundred rowers to a hull, racing on Punnamada Lake. It runs in August. It is loud, enormous and completely unlike the rest of Alleppey, and accommodation goes early.