Sunday, August 3, 2008

A Boatman on the Backwaters


This was taken on the backwaters in Alappuzha, or Alleppey as it is more commonly known. The backwaters are sublime, beautiful, quiet and almost otherworldly.




However, a lot of people have heard of them, and they are now choked with houseboats-aesthetic and appropriately ethnic, but still, painfully ubiquitous. Who am I to judge though, tourism is likely the dominant industry in the area, and keeps the local people employed and solvent. If that means more of the floating palaces, so be it I suppose. Many of the locals still use the backwaters to commute, and all the houses and fields lining the backwaters have boats tethered outside instead of motorbikes or scooters.

2 comments:

-Matt said...

Good start to your travel photo blog. I just started mine too although you can't tell on Blogger. Mine is http://www.wewillexplore.com

I love this boatman image - it's the type of image that when I capture one like it, I think "did I do that?" In this case, you did. And you should be proud of that type of image.

Niranjana said...

Thank you Matt, I will definitely be around to visit.

Yes, it was total serendipity, with the light and the placing of boats, because it was taken in the middle of the day, ti just so happened we were past him, with the sun behind him. It was nice.