Planning · when to go
Best time to visit Alleppey, month by month
November – March. Warm, dry, and the fields green until the March harvest. The Nehru Trophy snake-boat race is traditionally the second Saturday of August, lately late August — check the year's date; Onam falls around it. The monsoon, June to September, is real and beautiful and the cheapest time for a boat, if you don't mind rain on the roof. Our pick: January — dry, the paddy at its greenest, the canals still in the mornings, and the houseboat clusters thinner than at Christmas.
The season, honestly
November to March is the season — warm, humid, mostly dry, the paddy green through February and gold by April. Two monsoons hit the backwaters: the south-west from June (the wettest quarter, with the lake at its highest and the boats at their cheapest) and the north-east in October, which here is wetter than August. The boat race comes at the monsoon's tail in late August.
October to March
Oct: 31° / 24° — north-east monsoon — about as wet as August
Nov: 32° / 24° — drying; season begins
Dec: 33° / 23° — dry; fields being sown
Jan: 33° / 23° — dry, warm — peak season
Feb: 33° / 24° — dry; the paddy at its greenest
Mar: 34° / 25° — hot, humid; the harvest
April to September
Apr: 34° / 25° — hot; fields cut and gold
May: 33° / 25° — pre-monsoon showers
Jun: 30° / 24° — south-west monsoon — wettest month
Jul: 29° / 23° — monsoon; lowest boat rates
Aug: 30° / 24° — onam; the Nehru Trophy late in the month
Sep: 31° / 24° — easing
If you can only come in the heat
Start at opening, be back indoors by eleven, and go out again an hour before sunset. A houseboat night, done right at 8am in May is emptier and better than at noon in December — the city's rhythm is the desert's, and it rewards anyone who keeps it.
Keep going
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