How to do the Kerala backwaters properly

Alleppey's main channel in season looks like a motorway of identical houseboats. It is comfortable, it photographs well, and it shows you almost nothing of how backwater villages live.

The alternative is a country canoe. Punted or with a small motor, it fits through the metre-wide canals behind the main waterway, past school jetties, duck herders, toddy tappers and coir-making yards.

Do both if you like: one afternoon canoe, one night on a small two-cabin houseboat that anchors away from the fleet. Ask for anchoring away from the crowd specifically — it is a request most operators can honour and almost none offer.

Base yourself in a homestay near Kumarakom or on Marari beach rather than in Alleppey town. Mornings are quieter, food is better, and you are closer to the birds at Kumarakom sanctuary.

Go between November and February. By late March the humidity makes afternoons on open water genuinely hard work.