A Ft. Kochi stroll

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The tourist track in Kochi has a defined beat along Princess St, Tower Rd., Bastion St. Napier St., and Rose St. The harbor, Chinese fishing nets, and ferry docks are equally popular along with the seawall walk. The Mattancherry District and Jew Town are easily reached along Bazar Rd., but the more interesting route is to meander through the back lanes across the pensinsula that makes up Kochi. Today's walk ( on a non-holiday) took us past bakers frying up potato fritters, lentil donuts, and other treats, as well as meat-selling stalls with hanging carcasses, an ancient woman sifting rice in front of her modest dwelling, and an alleyway full of very small living quarters spilling over with cooking pots. An accidental sojourn into another alley turned out to be a slaughterhouse of sorts: fresh goatskin in piles, meat to be cut up, with the next in line standing around. The smells in the everpresent gutters, children playing in the schoolyard, and asking for picture-taking, barber shops, small tea shops, and candy and small goods stores were all part of the scene.

We finally happened on a fruit and vegetable market, with stalls piled high with beans, onions, carrots, winter squash, bitter melon, sweet melon, and tamarind. Apples, both from India and imported, citrus fruits, pineapples, and watermelon were in other stalls. Bananas in huge bunches on woody stalks were cut to order, in special banana shops along the road.

Later we stopped in a small spice shop run by a nice young woman who roasted and ground her own curry and spice mixtures -- fish curry, garam masala, masala tea, samblar curry, and tandoori spices. She told us about each one, and let us smell the powders.

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Photos

Mattancherry street
A walk in the neighborhoods of Mattancherry provided a different view than the tourist areas.

Banana seller
Sweet small bananas, red bananas, and cooking bananas were all part of his operation.

Butcher stall
Hanging meat (rare in South India) is sold to local Muslim families, after being slaughtered and prepared according to Halal procedure.

Fruit stalls
It was nice to come upon a fruit market!

Mattancherry street
Small dwellings lined this byway.

Young girls
Children seemed to like to greet tourists and ask to have their picture taken; quite different than many parts of the world.