Waking before sunrise, I walked the banks of one of the hundreds of waterways south of Allepey. The air was cool but already cosy with humidity, revealing a heat that was yet to come. The world was still, and the first life came from the cries of kingfishers in the palms. I encountered a man in his canoe setting off into the dawn through a patch of lotus flowers - his shirt and their petals casting warmth into the backwater sea of emerald and earth.