Snake boat races

I spent Saturday at the immensely cool annual Nehru Trophy Snake Boat Races in Alappuzha, Kerala.

A little bit like a once-a-year NASCAR race, the Snake Boat race is a big annual party. Keralites from all over the state come to watch the race. And it's quite a spectacle.

Snake boats are really long, really skinny boats that people paddle like canoes. The biggest snake boats carry up to 135 people at a time (about 125 paddlers and 10 people clapping and banging drums to set the pace). Participants spend 4 to 5 months training for the race. Races are about 2 km long, with 4 boats racing at a time in each heat with the winners advancing.

I spent the weekend with my friend Dave from Sloan Business School, his roommate, and my new friend Madhu. Madhu arranged a boat for us to watch the race which was definitely the way to go. Since we were running late we had a bit of adventure and had to take a canoe to get out to our big boat just in time for the race. But we ended up making it without a problem.

People lined all along one side of the lake watching along the shore or in places in basic grandstands. Along the other side of the course, everyone who could get on a boat lined up and watched the races from the water, and generally sang and swam and had a festive time.

Here are a number of photos.

Rowing out to our main boat just in time for the start of the races

Snake boats in actionThe official umpires did nothing but occasionally wave a white flag

The crowd was extremely festive. Actually, the boat next to us tried to start a fight with the next boat and a few people started throwing 2x4s. Nearly a disaster

Sometimes coordinating 135 people doesn't work well. If people get off rhythm, the boat starts to fill with water and ends up sinking. This boat was stuck half under-water for about 15 minutes

The final race was the closest

Finally, the sun went down on a long, tough day of snake boat spectating