It's a long day of airports: Udaipur to Chennai, then a wait to fly on via Trivandrum to Cochi. Arriving after dark, it's another couple of hours through surprisingly modern urban sprawl on pretty good roads to get to the smallish outpost of Cochi. Around for centuries as a center of the spice trade on the Arabian Sea's Malabar coast, it has seen seasons of Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and British colonies, and has also been home to a community of Jews as far back as the mid 1300's. In fact, tiny Mattancherry, which lies next to Fort Cochi, boasts India's oldest still working synagogue--although there are reputedly only a handful of Jews left in the area, and there is no rabbi.
In a morning of sweltering heat and humidity, we wander down the block to the sea, fallen upon by local tuk tuk drivers who want to take us on "tour". Of note are the fish stands, backed by the huge Chinese nets--this name given since it was the Chinese who originally introduced them. The giant nets are lowered and raised in what seems a ludicrous attempt at fishing. They're hung on massive poles weighted with hefty stones, and when raised there is barely a butterfly net's worth of tiny fish. Men sit mending nets, while others mostly lounge along the shore pathway, which, truth be told, is indescribably filthy with rubbish. We walk along towards Gandhi beach, but again, there's not a grain of sand, only rubbish. Across the entry way into the harbor, oil tankers and a couple of military looking vessels sail by. Huge oil storage facilities dot various parts of the landscape, along with the forest of taller buildings in distant Ernakulam, the modern city across the water.
We continuing walking the small historic area that is now called Fort Cochi, although none of the fort walls or much of anything else are left. We run into our tuk tuk friend Subhair again--he's been shadowing us--, and agree to have him haul us around to see the sights. It's too hellishly hot to walk it all. As India's most Christian state, we start off with a couple of churches. One originally held the explorer Vasco da Gama's remains, before they were returned to Lisbon in the 1530's. There is a Dutch cemetery, an old palace with gorgeous murals, appropriated by the Dutch after they ousted the Portuguese, and the lovely little Jewish synagogue in Mattancherry. We visit the local laundry site, refurbished and still in use, originally set up as a central area to clean the uniforms of the Dutch soldiers, where some major whacking of clothes and linens is going on in small stalls, while in the adjoining spaces, clothes are hung on twisted ropes so as to make clothespins unnecessary, and where coal fed irons are used by the team of men ironing. We end up the day with a visit to a small cooperative where they dry ginger and where the women make all sorts of spice mixes, teas, candles for the local churches and soap. I am easily persuaded to bring home a spice mix for masala tea and some heavenly smelling cardomon pods.
An unexpected highlight of the day is stumbling upon the preparations and later actual festivities around children's day at a local school. The very young children are shy, but the older ones, getting ready for their bicycle parade, are wildly enthusiastic and thrilled to pose for photos.
The next morning we contemplate taking the ferry around the waterways, but it's truly oppressively hot, so instead we spend hours hanging out in a small cafe on Princess Street, whiling away time with chai and juice. In the evening we visit a small cultural center to get a tourist view of Kerala's Kathakali performance, a classical Indian dance with highly stylized hand and eye movements, accompanied by some singing, a chime and some drums. It is preceded by a session demonstrating the application of some of the very elaborate theatrical make-up.
We leave Cochi for Munnar up in the Western Ghat mountains for a couple of days--see the separate post on Munnar--and then move on to the backwaters of Kerala, in the small town of Kumarakon, another longer than expected drive.
We're back in the tropics after a couple of days in the highlands, and despite the lake breeze, it's still uncomfortably hot. We arrive in time for an afternoon tea with some snacks and then take an uneventful hour long ride on the boat courtesy of the hotel. The water landscape is flat and rather monotone, so we plan to make our way into the nearby town on the following day to check out the backwater canals and waterways that have garnered the area its name.
By morning we've discovered that the hotel has some rickety bicycles we can borrow for our little exploration and we're off. The backwaters are rimmed with coconut palms, rice paddies and small brightly painted homes. The air is ripe with humidity, school kids rush off to school and the local ferry drops off passengers as we look down from a bridge. The odd fisherman sits by the side of the road with a tray full of fish for sale. Traffic is light on the main road, but as we drift to the small lanes that line the smaller waterways, the pace slows down still more. Women launder at the water sides, a small group of men is busy taking down a couple of dead trees, motorized long boats chug along the water, ladies saunter by under umbrellas, and we watch. In the afternoon, we head out once more, waving and smiling at the locals, who are lounging on stoops, chatting with neighbors, and slowly bringing their day to a close. As the sun sets over the lake, we enjoy the peace, and get ready for another bout of plane and car as we head north to the ruins at Hampi.
Some pictures of Cochi and the Kerala backwaters: lots of places didn't allow photos....
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AFQtny6Xs1icPHJH7
In a morning of sweltering heat and humidity, we wander down the block to the sea, fallen upon by local tuk tuk drivers who want to take us on "tour". Of note are the fish stands, backed by the huge Chinese nets--this name given since it was the Chinese who originally introduced them. The giant nets are lowered and raised in what seems a ludicrous attempt at fishing. They're hung on massive poles weighted with hefty stones, and when raised there is barely a butterfly net's worth of tiny fish. Men sit mending nets, while others mostly lounge along the shore pathway, which, truth be told, is indescribably filthy with rubbish. We walk along towards Gandhi beach, but again, there's not a grain of sand, only rubbish. Across the entry way into the harbor, oil tankers and a couple of military looking vessels sail by. Huge oil storage facilities dot various parts of the landscape, along with the forest of taller buildings in distant Ernakulam, the modern city across the water.
We continuing walking the small historic area that is now called Fort Cochi, although none of the fort walls or much of anything else are left. We run into our tuk tuk friend Subhair again--he's been shadowing us--, and agree to have him haul us around to see the sights. It's too hellishly hot to walk it all. As India's most Christian state, we start off with a couple of churches. One originally held the explorer Vasco da Gama's remains, before they were returned to Lisbon in the 1530's. There is a Dutch cemetery, an old palace with gorgeous murals, appropriated by the Dutch after they ousted the Portuguese, and the lovely little Jewish synagogue in Mattancherry. We visit the local laundry site, refurbished and still in use, originally set up as a central area to clean the uniforms of the Dutch soldiers, where some major whacking of clothes and linens is going on in small stalls, while in the adjoining spaces, clothes are hung on twisted ropes so as to make clothespins unnecessary, and where coal fed irons are used by the team of men ironing. We end up the day with a visit to a small cooperative where they dry ginger and where the women make all sorts of spice mixes, teas, candles for the local churches and soap. I am easily persuaded to bring home a spice mix for masala tea and some heavenly smelling cardomon pods.
An unexpected highlight of the day is stumbling upon the preparations and later actual festivities around children's day at a local school. The very young children are shy, but the older ones, getting ready for their bicycle parade, are wildly enthusiastic and thrilled to pose for photos.
The next morning we contemplate taking the ferry around the waterways, but it's truly oppressively hot, so instead we spend hours hanging out in a small cafe on Princess Street, whiling away time with chai and juice. In the evening we visit a small cultural center to get a tourist view of Kerala's Kathakali performance, a classical Indian dance with highly stylized hand and eye movements, accompanied by some singing, a chime and some drums. It is preceded by a session demonstrating the application of some of the very elaborate theatrical make-up.
We leave Cochi for Munnar up in the Western Ghat mountains for a couple of days--see the separate post on Munnar--and then move on to the backwaters of Kerala, in the small town of Kumarakon, another longer than expected drive.
We're back in the tropics after a couple of days in the highlands, and despite the lake breeze, it's still uncomfortably hot. We arrive in time for an afternoon tea with some snacks and then take an uneventful hour long ride on the boat courtesy of the hotel. The water landscape is flat and rather monotone, so we plan to make our way into the nearby town on the following day to check out the backwater canals and waterways that have garnered the area its name.
By morning we've discovered that the hotel has some rickety bicycles we can borrow for our little exploration and we're off. The backwaters are rimmed with coconut palms, rice paddies and small brightly painted homes. The air is ripe with humidity, school kids rush off to school and the local ferry drops off passengers as we look down from a bridge. The odd fisherman sits by the side of the road with a tray full of fish for sale. Traffic is light on the main road, but as we drift to the small lanes that line the smaller waterways, the pace slows down still more. Women launder at the water sides, a small group of men is busy taking down a couple of dead trees, motorized long boats chug along the water, ladies saunter by under umbrellas, and we watch. In the afternoon, we head out once more, waving and smiling at the locals, who are lounging on stoops, chatting with neighbors, and slowly bringing their day to a close. As the sun sets over the lake, we enjoy the peace, and get ready for another bout of plane and car as we head north to the ruins at Hampi.
Some pictures of Cochi and the Kerala backwaters: lots of places didn't allow photos....
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AFQtny6Xs1icPHJH7
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