Kottayam and Cochin

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I feel better after the rant on the last blog entry. Back to business i.e holidaying, never mind the poor wretches we see so many of 😞

A large sign in Kottayam says 'Kottayam round table number 75 offers free anti-snake bite serum.' Reassuring or what! Yesterday morning we walked through a bird sanctuary - at the entrance they tell us 'no birds', hmmm. Actually birds and bird noises are everywhere, it's just one of those areas of the world. Curiously we see virtually no other wild life throughout- no sudden slidthery repiles, no glimpses of animals darting here or there, just dogs (sleeping so we let them lie), lot of goats that people keep and very few cows. The mozzies are a bit too friendly though, especially the kami-kaze ones.

In the pm to cochin. We abandon the booked train and have a car drive there instead- unable to face a non-AC carriage in the heat. This is uneventful, except if you've read 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy, who comes from these parts. The drive to Cochin features in the book, an amazingly evocative and fantastically well-observed book (Booker prize winner)

Full of Syrian Christain churches, really everywhere, mainly Catholic, so mass on Christmas day will be easy to get to. The chuurch on the video is my venue for tomorrow morning. St Anthony is said to have reached here in 1st century AD. His image is everywhere, even on election posters.

For anyone thing of coming here avoid last night's restaurant the 'Upstairs Italian restaurant' A change from curries yes (strange how you need a break from 2 curries a day 7 days a week). It's clearly 'run' by Basil Fawlty and company, most orders wrong, to the wrong person, and over an hour to wait- otherwise perfecto!

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Photos

City gent off to work
Paddling own canoe. Canoes are a good way to travel, so many canals and no few roads along them.

Blue is the new black
Is this sophisticated tourist able to pretend he didn't buy his clothes from Primark?

Balcony under attack
Our hotel in kottayam is beside a bird infected lake.

Houseboats
Houseboats for families are all the tourist rage- AC even, toilets, cooking. But not quite us.

Fishing nets
These are the famous Chinese fishing nets in Cochin, more like a tourist attraction now.

Cochin fisherman
An old sage looking out. 'red sky at night, mosquitos delight'- yes I'm sure that's it.

Pardesi Synagogue
Dates back to 1568, destoyed by the Portuguese, and rebuilt by the Dutch. Jews are recorded as coming here in the 1st century AD.

What a relief
Naturally the service on offer is just the ticket. The local language is malayalam (beat that for a palindrome)

On sale in Jew Town
The usual tourist items and a few Christmas ones too. No last minute rush throught the snow and ice to M&S here. (Oh did I mention it is hot here, not cold and icy as at home.)

At the cafe
Our latest cafe visit induces a nose scratch, at least I think it's that.

Truck near the docks
Getting lost in a new city can be good. This road is full of commodity broking- flour, rice and the like.