Backwater cruise 1Tourist or traveller?

The following is an extract from the travel book A River of Life: Travels through Modern India.

The main appeal of a visit to Kerala is a journey by boat through the interlinked lagoons and palm-fringed backwaters along its coast. Trivandrum - or Thiruvananthapuram, to give it its official name - isn't part of that network. It has no real sights to speak of. But it is relaxed enough, easy-going, a joy to be in and wander round.

I leave Trivandrum by train, and as we progress towards Kollam, where the backwater or "Kuttanad" district really begins, I get my first glimpse of what is in store. The side of the track is lined with traditional Keralan homes and plantations of date and coconut palm. There are pockets of water here and there, in which people, waking to the day - I am travelling early - take their morning baths. The day is chill, a little misty. The water looks cold. Thinking of the heat which will inevitably come and smother this corner of the world later on, I watch the vigorous actions of the bathers with envy.

There are several routes to choose from when it comes to backwater cruises. The Kollam-Alappuzha stretch is by far the most popular. Numerous public ferries ply the route, as well as two tourist boats daily, one in each direction. There are three things which need be said about the tourist ferry: it is the most convenient option; it is the one I took; it is the wrong one.

I have misgivings even before booking. The word "tourist": I find it so ugly, full of dim associations, encapsulating everything that is bad about travelling, from the shallowness and lack of real contact to the frivolousness of it all, the self-indulgence. I much prefer the word "traveller": it is far nobler, embodying challenge, intrepidity, adventurousness and the thrill of the unknown.

Or am I thinking of the word "explorer"? Travel is the bastard son of tourism and exploration, and while it leans, at the best of times, towards the latter, there is no getting away from its relationship to the former. Things get tough and what do I do? Stick it out to the bitter end? Cleave to the ideals of intrepidity no matter how intimidated I am by the possible consequences? My actions at Kollam are answer enough to questions such as those: there is a Tourist Information booth selling tickets for the cruises on Platform 4; there are rickshaw men smiling at me as I leave the station; there is a boat waiting at the jetty. It isn't exactly package tourism, but neither is it independent travelling in its most unadulterated form, and I can't help but feel, as I reach the ferry, that I have been lax somehow, seduced by ease and convenience.