Houseboat Retreats

Eight hundred miles of water, and no hurry at all

Teak kettuvallams with their own crew, moored each night somewhere the day boats never reach.

A kettuvallam is a converted rice barge. The good ones are teak, hand-tied with coir, and crewed by three: a captain, an engineer and a cook. The bad ones are plywood with an engine, and there are a great many of them at the Alleppey jetty.

Sole use means the boat is yours. It does not mean the boat moves at night - almost none do, for good navigational reasons - so the mooring matters more than the itinerary. A boat moored in a row of thirty is a different night from one moored alone beside a village.

The Vembanad only becomes itself after the day traffic goes in, at around four in the afternoon. Everything worth seeing happens after that, and again before seven the following morning.

Sole use, genuinely

One party per boat. Two bedrooms on the larger craft, a crew of three, and a deck nobody else steps onto.
No fixed route

The day is decided each morning with the captain, according to the water and your inclination. The narrow canals need a shallower boat, which we arrange.
Cooked aboard

Fish bought from a passing canoe and grilled on the deck. The cook is yours for the duration and considerably better than the setting suggests.