Today is an important day in our adventure because we're on a houseboat cruise on the Kerala backwaters, something we've been looking forward to very much. Following instructions from the cruise boat office last night we get an auto to the place where the cruises start, confusingly called the 'finishing point'. There are about twenty houseboats moored up there, all ready to depart. They are all built to a similar basic design; a wooden hull with a bamboo and cane superstructure shaped a bit like the Sydney Opera House. There are various sizes, from two to six berth, and motorised or non-motorised. Ours is non-motorised so is punted along by two "punter-wallahs" (Clive's name for them, probably not the real Indian term). Making up the crew of three is a cook, who seems to be in charge of the boat. On-board facilities include a lounge area, a bedroom and a toilet, all towards the front of the boat. The galley and crew quarters are at the back.

We have one punter-wallah at the back and one at the front. They use bamboo poles about 5m long. Our progress is less than walking pace, so there's plenty of opportunity to see the settlements alongside the waterways. People live on narrow spits of reclaimed land only a few metres wide. Although practically surrounded by water, they still manage to keep cows, pigs, chickens and ducks and cultivate small vegetable gardens. We're pampered while the crew work hard to move us along. Clive gets fidgety and wants to have a go at punting, but Sarah dissuades him. These guys have been doing it for years and Clive would only make a fool of himself!

The backwaters are very peaceful - or at least they would be if it weren't for a Hindi religious service in the area, which is using speakers fit for a rock concert at Wembley Stadium. We don't know exactly where it is but the sound can be heard for miles. First comes the sermon, which our crew tells us is about the history of the world. This lasts about an hour. Then there's the singing, or in this case, wailing. This lasts a good two hours or more. It's followed by music - drums, horns, and more wailing. All up, it lasts most of the day.

We moor for lunch overlooking paddy fields. The food is excellent, particularly given the rudimentary galley. Clive decides to walk along the path beside the waterway, with the houseboat following. It's similar in some ways to walking along the towpath on an English canal, except that he's walking through the waterside communities. There are small shops and some surprisingly smart houses, although most are little more than brick huts. Towards the end of the afternoon on a wide and exposed part of the waterways a breeze blows up which causes the crew some problems. Added to this, there's a great deal of water hyacinth growing in certain places which slows progress. The crew is up to the challenge though and we head into the massive lake Vembanad, which is 179 square kms, where we're to spend the night. As we're skirting the edge of the lake we see many hundreds of ducks jumping into the water. The crew tells us that these are farmed ducks which are being taken back to 'the house' for the night, and sure enough we can see a chap walking along the path. He whistles and the ducks follow with much quacking. They're very funny to watch. We nickname the man the "duck meister".

We anchor in the lake at dusk. There are many other houseboats around us, although all very spread out so it doesn't seem crowded. We're treated to a spectacular sunset, accompanied by some traditional Indian music being played somewhere on the shore which sounds eerie as darkness falls. Later there's some drumming which sounds like someone bashing manically on a biscuit tin, accompanied in parts by someone else on small cymbals. This continues, on and off, for a couple of hours, and the evening is so still that it sounds like it's next door!

Dinner is at 8pm, after which we sit and look up at the sky. That lasts for about five minutes, then we get bored, so it's out with the Ipod. But we didn't bring the speakers, so we share the headphones, one earpiece each, singing along to our favourite classics! We suddenly realise that the manic biscuit tin drummer has stopped. He clearly can't bear the competition but we didn't think we were singing that loud!