Alappuzha, India Summary

Under its former appellation of Alleppey, ALAPPUZHA, roughly midway between Kollam (85km south) and Kochi (64km north), is another romantic and historic name from Kerala’s past. It was one of the best-known ports along the Malabar coast, and tourist literature is fond of referring to it as “Venice of the East”, but while it may be full of interconnecting canals, there the resemblance ends. Alappuzha is a bustling, messy town of ramshackle wood and corrugated iron-roofed houses, chiefly significant in the coir industry, which accounts for much of the traffic on its oily green-brown waterways.