Rice Barge Houseboat
The spectacular beauty of Kerala’s backwaters needs no introduction. A cruise along the palm-fringed waterways of Kerala in luxury houseboat is the most enchanting holiday experience in India today. Houseboats have truly helped to explore the magnetizing charm of the Kerala backwater destinations that include the Kumarakom, Alleppey, Kuttanad, Kasargod, Kollam, Cochin, Thiruvallam, etc. Kerala houseboat is one of the finest example of manmade wonder that offers sheer pleasure to any vacationer in Kerala. Made with utmost care and designed to please the visitors, Kerala houseboat is an eco-friendly gateway to vast stretches of the backwaters, whose beauty is beyond comparison and description.
Houseboats have evolved historically with times. From ancient times, water ways in God’s own country were bustling with activity in and around the backwater districts of Kottayam, Alappuzha and Ernakulam. Then houseboat was called Kettuvallam, the only means of transportation used for shipping goods, paddy, rice, agricultural harvest and main materials. Kettuvallam (or Rice Barge) is a country boat that was used in the early days for the transport of goods from the isolated interior villages to the towns like Alleppey, Kollam, Cochin and Kottayam. With the advent of roads, bridges and ferry services, gradually the kettuvallams went off the scene. Now these kettuvalloms are back again as a major tourist attraction as a modern moving boat house. Houseboat sizes vary from about 95 feet in length and a width of around 13 feet in the middle, if it has a single bedroom. The length goes up to 107 feet with a width of 19 feet. The materials that go into the making are all local and eco friendly bamboo poles, coconut fiber ropes, bamboo mats, coir carpets etc. The main wood used is “Anjili” (Wild Jack – seen in evergreen forests of Western Ghats).
Picture Gallery
