The Alleppey Beach Resort

The beginning of our stay at the Alleppey Beach "Resort" made me reconsider medicine and think about taking up engineering.

Our hot water shower wasn't working because the management had installed one of India's new-fangled propane instant water heaters to provide "unlimited hot water." Unfortunately, as is with many things in India, the heater was installed haphazardly (the propane tank, which was connected to the heater unit by an old rubber tube that had sat out in the sun too long, sat on top of 3 bricks stacked on an old 50-gallon drum that used to be filled with tar), and no one knew how to use it or how to get it to work. The manager was a nice guy, but utterly incompetent. After promising to "call the plumber" he simply went away. But that still left me without a shower.

So I trooped out behind our little cottage and a set about figuring out how one of these little heaters worked. And I figured it out, and so we got hot water. I asked the manager if the plumber was coming. "Tomorrow he coming," and no explanation of why he wasn't coming 'today,' or better yet, 'right away.' Good thing I knew could figure out how to fix water heaters.

But other than a nice long stroll down the beach and a whole bunch more games of Ziggity, I am proud to say Mary and I successfully did absolutely nothing at the beach other than sitting and enjoy. We ventured into Alleppey a few times to walk around, but enjoyed more being able to do nothing.