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Just spent a week in the very beautiful Kerala, in Southern India. Started off in Fort Cochin, where we saw a performance of Kathakali, a traditional Keralan dance-drama. Then we moved on to Alleppey where we stayed in a houseboat on the backwaters. It was so relaxing as there's nothing you can really do on the boat except read, eat and listen to the sound of the water lapping against the side. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, and the boats were far more luxurious and much bigger than we expected. In fact we felt the boat was a bit too big for just the two of us plus two 'staff' (which was another thing that made us a bit uncomfortable - in theory having people wait on you sounds really nice, in reality we just felt awkward!)
It was still effectively low season in Kerala when we were there, but even then the backwaters were getting pretty crowded. There are now over 600 houseboats on the waters and we saw plenty more being built. We had a really lovely time there and it did live up to expectations but I think if we'd gone in high season we'd have been disappointed.
Interesting fact: Kerala has by far the highest rate of literacy in India, at over 90%, however it also has the highest rate of suicide in the country (3x national average). This is thought to be linked to the gap between the high levels of education and the lack of commensurate jobs available.
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