A night at Hotel AJ Park can cost less than a single lunch served on a backwater houseboat, and that simple fact explains why travellers keep finding it. The hotel stands at Vellakkinar Junction on Beach Road, in the middle of Alappuzha, the canal town that the British once compared to Venice, roughly halfway between the beach and the town centre.
The building is not new, and guests say so openly. It has around forty rooms with air conditioning, televisions and, in some, minifridges and tea makers, plus an inexpensive restaurant that reviewers praise, a banquet hall, a business corner, a doctor on call and free parking. From here, Alappuzha Beach and the old lighthouse are about a kilometre and a half away, the bus stand is close, and the houseboat jetties are a short auto rickshaw ride.