Muted as the dawn itself, the alarm cry of a solitary pond heron breaks the early morning stillness as a dugout canoe, paddled by two fishermen, glides across the water at a determined but unhurried pace.The scene is idyllic, the mood dreamlike. Kerala’s back country waterways seem far removed from the universe most of us inhabit, yet they are linked to the rest of the world in a very real way, and have been for at least two millennia

In earlier times, if less so today, these very waterways were the staring point for the transport of South Indian spices, which eventually found their way to the distant shores of Europe and beyond. Formed by the 40- odd rivers that flow down to the Arabian Sea form the Cardamom Hills in the Western Ghats, this network of rivers, canals, lakes and estuaries compromises one of India’s most beautiful areas a rural, river in expanse of verdant coconut groves and rice paddies. In Malayalam, the language of Kerala, the backwaters are known as Kuttanad, "the land of the short people," a reference, perhaps, to the face that the farmers seen working here are often knee-deep in paddy fields,