Waterway Boredered By Palm Trees On The Backwaters Of Kerala, Alleppey, India, 2008 (photo)

Alappuzha or Alleppey is a town located in Kerala on the Arabian coast and considered as the ‘Venice of the East’; the city is famous for its mesmerizing backwaters composed of small idyllic islands, its quaint water-bound villages, its shady streets along the important network of waterways full of houseboats and little canoes; Alappuzha is also known for its boat races during the harvest season in particular the Nehru Trophy Boat Race, a regatta of decorated low slung snake boats (‘Chunda Vallams’) during which the crowd gather along the palm lined banks; another focus in this town is Kuttanad, a farming place where farmland are located below sea level and which is submerged by water during the rainy season