Alappuzha Town travel guides & top lists

Alappuzha was populated by invitation, and the invitation was accepted. The proof stands on Gujarati Street in white stone that came from two thousand kilometres away.

Most Kerala festivals happen inside a temple compound. This one takes the road — stalls, canopies, lights, elephants and fireworks along the street the town does its shopping on.

It is the most ambitious heritage conversion announced in India, and it may well be excellent. It is also being described online in a tense that does not tell you whether you can walk into any of it this week.

Almost everyone treats Alappuzha as a jetty with a town attached. Turn it round — two nights, the canals and the merchant streets on foot, and the water as one part of it — and it is a far better trip.