The water looks like mercury from where I'm sitting. The currents of the Arabian Sea don't make it far enough into the Keralan backwaters to jolt anything, so this silver water moves slowly. Our houseboat glides across the water, passing rice paddies and farms and goats and the occasional couple on their honeymoon.
"What a polite afternoon," I say, having just read that word about four times on my current page of Bill Bryson's adventures in England, entitled Notes From a Small Island. He had just talked about polite ticket collectors who thanked you on trains, and how there wasn't any pushing or shoving while people boarded or exited the platform on his way to Wiltshire.
"What polite air," I say, still savoring the word. The air is just dewy enough to let you feel like you're near water, but it's nowhere as imposing as ocean-air.
Our next hours become instinctive, not a calculated move on what's the best use of our time while we're here. Kendon chooses to fish--first with dough, then with live bait. Bianca chooses to take photos and admire the local fauna. And I choose to find out how Bryson felt returning to his old town in England years after he had moved away.
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