December 14, 2014. To the houseboat in Alleppy

We drove about 3 hours down from the mountain through tea plantations.  We went from a cool mile-high altitude to a hot, steamy 1 foot below sea level Alleppy.  We passed through more tea plantations, 

then flooded rice paddies.

Our driver dropped us off at our houseboat.

There are about 800 moored here.  We learned that they used to be used as cargo boats until the 90s when someone thought of tourist houseboats.

Our captain, co-captain and chef greeted us, and gave us a boat orientation.  The main question was how spicy do we like our food.  :-)