Drifting Through the Backwaters of Alleppey

We spent two nights on a converted rice-barge houseboat drifting through Alleppey's backwaters, and time genuinely slowed down out there. Coconut palms leaned in over narrow canals, kids waved from the banks on their way to school, and our onboard cook somehow produced an enormous fish curry lunch from a kitchen the size of a closet.

It rained most afternoons, which just meant watching the water from under the boat's canopy, tea in hand, in no rush to be anywhere else on earth.