Kerala backwaters

Behind the long sandy shore of Kerala, on India's south-western Malabar Coast, lies a second, inland world of water. The backwaters are a maze of brackish lagoons, lakes, rivers and canals running parallel to the Arabian Sea for much of the length of the state, with hundreds of kilometres of navigable channels in all. Coconut palms lean over the banks, villages, churches and temples sit on narrow strips of land between the water and the rice fields, and the main traffic is by boat. Few landscapes anywhere are so completely shaped by water and by the people who live on it.

The system was formed as waves and coastal currents built low barrier islands across the mouths of the many rivers flowing down from the Western Ghats, trapping their water behind the shore. Here river water and sea water meet and mix, creating a rich brackish world of fish, crabs and mudskippers, with kingfishers, cormorants and darters along the banks. At its heart is Vembanad, the longest lake in India, stretching for close to 100 km from the Kochi area south past Alappuzha. Together with the wetlands around it, Vembanad was listed under the Ramsar Convention in 2002 as a wetland of international importance, as were Ashtamudi Lake and Sasthamkotta Lake further south.

South of Vembanad lies Kuttanad, the rice bowl of Kerala, where paddy fields lie a metre or more below sea level, protected by dykes of clay, bamboo and coir and drained by pumps and channels. In 2013 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recognised this way of farming below the sea as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System. The barges that once carried rice and goods across the lagoons, the kettuvallams with their arched roofs of woven palm, have become the houseboats for which the backwaters are now famous.

The waterways are also a racecourse. Long snake boats, crewed by around a hundred rowers each, compete in the region's boat races, the most celebrated being the Nehru Trophy on Punnamada Lake near Alappuzha. It grows from a race held for Jawaharlal Nehru during his visit in 1952, after which the prime minister sent a silver trophy back from Delhi.

Getting there

This part of the backwaters lies at the northern end of Vembanad Lake, near the village of Arukutti and the town of Aroor, south of Kochi. Cochin International Airport (COK) is about 32 km away. The main bases for exploring the lagoons are Kochi, whose Ernakulam stations are major railway hubs, and Alappuzha further south, also on the railway, from which public ferries of the state water transport department cross Vembanad to Kottayam and lakeside villages.