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After a hair raising bus ride through the night, we arrived in Cochin (or Kochi as it's now called). It was a big overcrowded place, so we got straight on a little ferry, and went to Fort Cochin. A lovely little island, just off the coast, and connected by a large bridge. Fort Cochin has English/Portuguese/Dutch influence, and is very quaint. There's lots of parks, quiet streets, churches and greenery. It was almost like England on a summer's day.
We stayed for 3 days, and took a boat trip through the backwaters on our first day. It was stunning. There was a group of 10 on this old wooden boat, being punted down the rivers and estuaries that form some of the backwaters of Kerala. We didn't see any wildlife, which was surprising, but had a very relaxing day all the same!
The next day, we had planned to go sightseeing, but there was a knock at the door - a guy wanting to know if we'd like to be 'extras' on a Bollywood film set!! They paid us 1,000 rupees (14 pounds!!) for the day, but it was the experience we were really going for. The film set,
which was a delapidated hotel, with the basement converted into a disco for the film. There were lights, film equipment and people everywhere!! It was boiling in there. We arrived, and were immediately taken to the disco set and asked to dance to loudly playing Hindu music, as if were in a club. Very strange, and funny...! After 10 minutes, they took us off for costume change - Dave wore a sarong with tight tank top (dashing!), and I wore a trouser style saree!! We then went back on-set, and spent the whole day dancing on cue!
We were backing Hindu dancers for most of the day, apart from a 10 second stint, when the camera focused on the two of us dancing with a famous Indian actor, Ashish Vidyarthi. That was our moment of fame! The film will be out in July, so we'll buy a copy then, and see if we made the cut! Ha, ha! :-)
That evening we went to celebrate our newly found 'star status' with an iced coffee, and bumped into Ashis again (who we'd done a scene with earlier in the day). He recognised us, and we got talking. There were
lots of people coming up to him taking photos, which was quite surreal. He then asked if he could join Dave and I for dinner. We went outside to get into his chaffeur driven car, which by now was surrounded by a big group of fans wanting to speak to him / touch him / take his photo. We got the restaurant, and had a really lovely evening - good food and good company.
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Andy
non-member comment
Phonetic
Guess that if you were spelling the place name phonetically I guess that Cochin would sounds a like 'Cock In'. Ohhh errr misses!. Just hope that Ashis didn't try to much Cochin action with you.