Snake Boat Race

 

When I was told about the 54th Nehru Snake boat race on Punnamada lake, I was told it might be hard to see it because it was a very popular event, and people were scrambling to get tickets to one of the top 10 events in India. Once again The kind folks at G.O.C. holiday Maker  (e-mail gocholidaymaker@hotmail.com) did their magic, and they found V.I.P tickets at a pavilion located on the water at the finish line. Anil, founder of G.O.C. and his new business partner James, joined me, and it was great to meet them.

The tickets were available from Punnamada Resort, and I was able to take a few pics at the resort before we left on a boat to the pavillion.

 

Here is a type of boat that is in the race. Click on the picture for a detailed look:

 

You can see that there are almost 100 people rowing in the boat. This is not an ordinary boat race. There are thousands of people in attendance, and the winner gets the Nehru Trophy and 3 lakh (1 lakh is about $2,000 USD).

The boat categories were:

• Exhibition Rowing - 18 boats participated
• Thekkanody Vanitha - 3 boats participated and 10 foreign women joined the Chellikadan team for the win. It was the first time women have participated in a competition item.
• Churulan B Grade - 4 boats
• Churulan A Grade - 4 boats
• Iruttukuthy Grade B - 12 boats
• Iruttukuthy Grade A - 7 boats
• Veppu Grade B - 4 boats
• Veppu Grade A - 8 boats

That's a total of 60 boats in the race. The official start was around 2:30 pm, and the final champion race ended around 6:00pm.

There are actually a lot more boats, but previous elimination matches had been held days if not weeks before until the final 60 boats were left to compete for the prizes.

We did see one boat sink, and they had to pull it out of the water. The good news is that the boat did cross the finish line.

The distance traveled is about 2.5 kilometers (about 1.5 miles). I didn't get the times, but if someone knows the times, please post them in the comments section.

At this point, you are probably expecting a lot of pictures of the race.  After the race was over, someone commented that "what happened here could not be described." I agree with that statement. It can't be described with words or pictures...but what about video?

Click on the link below to either download or watch the video I took of the event. Everything you see and hear was taken at the event, and I have done some editing to make it all a bit more entertaining. The link below is a low quality video, and if you want the higher quality version, contact me.

SnakeRace_LQ.wmv

You can see all the pics here:

My co-workers at IdentityMine gave the following links in case you want to know more about this event.

http://www.nehrutrophyboatrace.com/

http://nehrutrophy.nic.in/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehru_Trophy_Boat_Race

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallam_Kali

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chundan_Vallam

 http://www.keralatourism.org/index.php?source=audio&zone=4&audioid=51

 http://malaysianincanada.blogspot.com/2006/06/vallom-kali.html