Fort Kochi

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We took the public bus from Allepey up to Fort Kochi - our last stop in India. The bus didn't let us off at Cochi, but kept on driving to Ernakulum, the major city and transport hub across the water. From there we took the ferry over, and I was amazed at all of the massive ocean ships docked in the harbour. It was a short ride and when we disembarked we rushed off to find a hotel. We were a little nervous since none of our calls to the hotels listed in our guidebook turned up any vacancies, so we hopped into a auto-rickshaw and told him to take us to one of the hotels that we hadn't been able to reach by phone. They were full, but they referred us to a pleasant little guesthouse down the street called the harbourage homestay. The owners are very sweet and the rooms are nice, but I think at 1200 Rs it's a bit overpriced. Once we dropped off our stuff, we walked down to waterfront past streets lined with small guesthouses and homestays. Although the town is busy (it's still the season), we probably didn't need to worry so much about accommodation. Once we got past the clothing and trinket vendors, we arrived at the working chinese fishing nets. These are huge contraptions that balance weights on one end and a large net on the other. The fishermen raised and lowered the nets fairly often, then scooped up their catch with a small handheld net and put them in a basket for market. It is possible to select fresh fish from the market and get it fried up at one of the nearby restaurants, but seeing a cat jump out of one of the fish baskets convinced me not to try it. Still walking along the waterfront, we came to the Kathakali dance centre and bought tickets for the evening show. Part of the spectacle is watching the artists apply their heavy makeup, which transforms them into fantastic black, yellow and green characters. The makeup process took about an hour and a half, and then the storytelling was scheduled to start. First, they demonstrated how different emotions are portrayed during the performances. Kathakali doesn't resemble the dances I'm used to - instead of leaping and twirling, it's more energetic eyebrow waggling, eye rolling and miming. After the explanation, they launched into the story. We had a summary of the plot (which was minimal) which really helped, since even after the demo, a lot of the movements were lost on me. We were all wowed when the first character arrived on stage - his makeup and incredible costume made him convincing as the she-demon he was playing. But she-demons don't seem to get up to much while they're wandering in the woods, so the audience got a little restless after the prolonged intro. The arrival of the prince and beautiful maiden after half and hour gave us new costumes to admire and got us focused again. It was an interesting show overall, and I'm glad we went.

Next day we wandered through Kochi - it's a pretty little town that's easy to walk around in. We visited a couple of churches - santa Cruz and St. Francis, which had old gravestones embedded in the walls and where Vasco de Gama was buried for a few years. We had an incredible delicious lunch at Kashi art cafe and then took a rickshaw over to Mantencherry palace. the building itself is large but not that impressive from the outside. Inside was a display of portraits of the leaders of Kochi and an exhibit of their palanquins, clothes and weapons. But the best part was the walls that were covered in detailed murals - one room contained the whole Ramayana!

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Photos

St Francis
Very old, first resting place of Vasco de Gama

Fruit stacking
Red bananas!