We left the resort on Sunday just before lunch. On our way we were taken to a Hindu festival for blessing of a new house belonging to one of the chefs. I think the manager thought we should see something local other than a luggage shop! The ceremony that we saw was carried out by a Holy man & is usually only seen in the Temple. It is called a Tayyum ceremony & involved the Holy man spending a lot of time decorating his body with different colours before dressing In quite an elaborate costume. His headdress was made up of flowers & he wore bangles around his ankles & wrists. He blessed the house & the owners etc—all quite symbolic & easy to follow. We didn’t have a camera with us so missed out on some great photo shots. This ceremony is only seen in Kerala so it was quite a unique occasion.
From there we went to the House boat——a huge converted rice barge beautifully styled following the theme of the Retreat. There are 2 bedrooms but we were the only guests aboard & had 4 crew to look after us. We began our cruise on the Backwaters straight away & we started off with a lovely lunch. I had imagined the Backwaters to be a bit canal like but in fact they are a huge expanse of navigable water south of where we had been. We went to Monkey Island where we were able to feed some monkeys near a Temple. I wasn’t that keen on doing this but the crew assured me that the monkeys were well behaved & this proved to be the case. They were really only interested in the fruit that the Chef had taken for them. When we got back to the boat the water was swimming in Jelly fish—-some of which I did manage to photo. We then whiled away the rest of the afternoon on the sun deck being objects of friendly curiosity to the local fishermen & ferry travellers. Just before dusk we made a further stop & went to see a Hindu Temple where during festival time thousands of people arrive ( a bit like Vaour during August ) & receive free food & shelter. We were the only visitors this time along with our guide Sajith from the boat. The local children were very curious & wanted to try out their language skills on us. As we left the Temple they waylaid us with gifts of petals & one girl gave me a note with a drawing of a Xmas tree & all their names listed.
We left them on shore & moored up for the night in the middle of the water. Chef prepared & served a beautiful four course meal which we ate by candle light on the sun deck before eventually turning in.
The next morning after a lovely breakfast we headed back to our starting point & the car came to take us to the airport.
