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Published: December 30th 2007
Local Ferry Service
Some of the services are a littled 'tired'. Seats toward the front are popular on this vessel.Kochi (formerly Cochin) is Kerala's most popular tourist destination. It has a large port & is historically the site of much peaceful foreign contact. Fort Cochin & Mattancherry, the older parts of the city, have quite an assortment of sights & architectural styles as a result of this history. It pretty much came into being as the result of flooding, which created a natural, safe harbour at its current location & silted up the existing harbour, Cranganore, 50km further north. It soon became the major port of the Malabar Coast with the city growing & attracting Christian, Arab & Jewish settlers from the Middle East. European interest in the area had the Portugese, Dutch & British competing, from the early 1500s, for control of the port & lucrative spice trade. Spice markets are still operating here.
We made our way to Kochi via train. It meant hopping a cab (300R=$9) to take us from Kovalam to Trivandrum (~16km). Bought our tickets, on arrival at the station, for 105R=$3 each - that's sleeper class, despite it being a 10am departure, as this would provide a bit more space for us & our gear. It was a 4hr trip on one of
Chinese Fishing Nets
These can be lowered into & then raised from the waters to haul in schools of local fish. those 'cattle cars', but not so bad as Trivandrum is the start point for the run up to Delhi, hence the train was not so heavily loaded as yet. A little bit of an altercation with the station porters about an appropriate fee & then a little time to sit & watch the track-side rats scurry around before we were off.
The trip was fairly pleasant, providing some good views of the backwaters as we approached Kochi. So much of the land glistened, either the serious backwaters, or rivers, or pastures steeped in water. You could quite seriously believe the whole state was flooded!
Arrived after a trip of about 4hr at Kochi, but the station name was actually Ernakulum. A bit of a battle to get out of the train with the newly joining passengers crowding the exit. Marg had checked out the
Rough Guide & had selected a hotel. Lugged our stuff to the main entrance, got a pre-paid taxi (150R=$4.40) to the
Biju Tourist Home where our double room cost 495R=$14.60/night incl. tax. The
Biju was a good get, as it turned out, quite near the boat jetty & some good local (cheap) eateries. The local
mosque calls to prayer, especially the 5am call, really gave it extra atmosphere. In fact, the whole region is very religious, even very Christian, with many a truck, bus or auto-rickshaw bearing a saint name.
Kochi is a set of islands & promontories which are linked by a system of ferries. Ernakulum, where we were staying, is the more modern face of Kochi, whilst Fort Cochin & Mattancherry are the historical face, just a 20 or 40min ferry ride away.
Our time in Trivandrum & Kovalam had introduced us to the lunghi, emphasised the darker skin the southerners have, reminded us of the propensity of locals to head wobble as they speak. All these things still prevailed here. The public buses, lacking windows so as to allow air-flow cooling, are big, fast & full. This city, however, had a bigger city feel to it than did it's state capital of Trivandum. There are lots of western tourists here, haunting out local hangouts, like the
Indian Coffee House or
Colombo's Restaurant. Beer is a rare commodity here - it's been pretty tough getting through these 33oC days without our usual afternoon ritual. Coffee, too; and I mean good coffee, is
Jew Town
Narrow shop-lined streets that lead to the White Synagogue. a very hard thing to find. By the way, you might think a place called the
Indian Coffee House might deal in all sorts of exotic coffee blends & styles - not so! They do sell some type of bean there, but the stuff they serve when you ask for coffee is rank. (although the region is well known in India for its coffee growing and drinking) One small compensation has been the discovery of a local ice-cream brand "Lazza", that delivers some good offerings in the confection department. Have been missing the habit developed at Kovalam of having a daily fruit-salad.
Our first ferry trip was to Fort Cochin (2.5R=7c each). This is an area name rather than an actually structure. (However there were at least two forts here; there was a
Fort Immanuel built here by the Portugese in 1503, but this was 'down-sized' with the Dutch conquest of 1663 & they installed their own version.) A walk of about 3km NW of the ferry jetty gets you to the Chinese fishing nets which line the northern shore. These are said to have been introduced to the Malabar Coast region by traders from the court of Kublai
"Lazza" local confection
The local ice-cream selection of Lazza's were a delight to behold & devour. Khan & first erected around 1400AD. The nets are suspended from arched poles & cantilevered with weights, & man power, to either lower the nets into the waters or to lift them out with the haul. You can buy some of the local produce & have it cooked for you right there. I watched maybe 10 blokes working one of these nets around the middle of the day & saw such a paltry load of fish caught in the three attempts I witnessed it was hard to understand how this net could sustain all those workers.
Once you leave the shore & walk around you'll note that much of the local architecture is quite European, as these premises were built by wealthy British & Dutch traders some 400 years ago. A very different feel here at Fort Cochin to Ernakulum, far more relaxed & unhurried. Lots of churches in the area too. Church of St. Francis, Santa Cruz Basilica, Holy Cross Church to name a couple of the standouts.
On Fri 07/Dec we took the Seven Hour Backwater Cruise offered by the Tourist Desk Information Counter. The backwaters of Kerala stretch for 75km from Kollam in the south to
Drink time!
Coconut cut from the palm, top lopped off, straw shoved in! Milk directly from its container. Kochi in the north, sandwiched between the sea & the hills. This outing cost us 550R=$16 each & included hotel pickup & return, cruise on the open backwaters, a Keralan lunch, canoe ride through the smaller interconnecting canals & some side stops to check out local industry. This turned out to be a really good day, enjoyed in great weather, giving us a good feel for the backwater life. The main cruise boat was on a large vessel with only 20 of us tourists, making our way around the various islands of these waters. There were quite a few
kettu vellum (local longboats) to be seen, gliding along the waters under the power of the push from one or two men on their long poles. We saw many boats with only one or two persons engaged in collecting the
golden sand from the lake bottom, for use in building projects. These boats would be so laden with sand that the water level was only millimetres from the boats top rim. Still other small crew vessels were harvesting fresh water mussels for both the meat & the calcium rich shells. The side trips referred to earlier weren't too bad either, seeing
Backwaters
Kettu vellum, longboat, so laden its very nearly submerged! (a) the making of
coir rope from the coconut husks, (b) calcium purification from the mussels shell material, (c) coconut harvest & drink from the nut, (d)
toddy tapping, the production of a coconut milk liquor, & (e) seeing the natural growth of many herbs & spices the area is renowned for. The canal cruise was done in smaller 6/7 person boats & got us in and around peoples living quarters - we cruised through the 'bathroom' of a couple of locals during the course of the afternoon. This whole day felt so full & informative we did not feel we needed to look for what does seem to be the more typical tourist backwater cruise, that involves an overnight stay on the waters as well.
Visited Mattancherry (for the first time) on Sun 09/Dec. This meant staying on our local ferry from Ernakulum for an extra two stops (cost 3.5R=10c). On arrival here you are pretty much in what is called Jew Town. This area was once a Jewish community much of which was displaced from Cranganore (north of Kochi) & other Malabar Coast areas. Land, and protection, were provided here, adjacent to the Royal Palace, by the
Jew Town Road
Most of the Jews here now are just tourists - with Kashmiris operating most of the local shops nowadays. Raja of Cochin. The Pardesi (White) Synagogue was founded here in 1568 & rebuilt in 1664 & is still standing for us to look at today down the end of a narrow dead-end street of many shops. The walk down this street is quite an arduous task, walking the gauntlet past the tenacious touts, and Kashmiri vendors who nowadays operate these shops selling antiques(?), bric-a-brac & jewellery. (It was in this area that Sue found, & fell in love with, a rather special writing desk.) Entry fee to the synagogue is just 2R but both Marg & I had to hire some clothing to cover bare legs & shoulders before we were allowed within.
Mattancherry Palace (entry 2R) is in the opposite direction from Jew Town. It was built by the Portugese for the Raja of Cochin but was renovated some time later by the Dutch & became known, to locals at least, as the Dutch Palace. The interior walls feature murals, in various degrees of repair, from the Ramajana dating from the 16th century.
We spent many hours shopping on the main drag in Ernakulum, Mahatma Ghandi - the MG- Road. (nearly every Indian city has an MG
Backwaters
Skipper at the tiller taking us through the backwaters. road). Ernakulum is busy, modern, and the shopping was pretty good.
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