“Here nature has spent up on the land her richest bounties. Alleppey, the Venice of the East.” So proclaimed George Nathaniel Curzon, the viceroy and governor-general of British India in the early 1900s. At the heart of Kerala’s economically vibrant and fertile rice bowl, Alappuzha, also known as Alleppey, is like no other place in India. Sitting on the Laccadive Sea with the Vembanad Lake to its northeast, Alleppey draws comparison to Venice by virtue of its massive network of freshwater rivers, canals, lakes, and lagoons. Like Kochi, which was and continues to be a pivotal maritime node for Indian Ocean trade, life in Alleppey is intertwined with maritime activity.
Ankit Panda is an associate editor at The Diplomat.