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Published: October 29th 2009
We left Hampi and started our long journey to our next destination...Kerela in the south. This involved 2 train journeys. One 8 hours long, hot sleeper class, seat next to the toilet, not great! The second was 16 hours long. We paid extra for 3AC class, much cooler and a nicer kind of person. PLU. We were befriended by a lovely family from Gujarta who insisted on feeding us all their homemade rotis and Diwali sweets and questioned us about whether we were married and why we weren't travelling with our parents!!.
Arrived in Fort Cochin via ferry, a lovely old port town with loads of history. It's famous for the Chinese fishing nets all along it's coast line, spice trading and for being colonised by the Portugese, French, Dutch and British in it's time. It is also full of schools, we've never seen so many, which is nice to see in India. According to our guide book, 80% of Kerelan girls go to school compared to only 15% in the rest of India. We took a tuktuk tour of it's Jain Temples, spice markets, Jewish Synagog (the first in India) and the Dutch Palace. We went to the theatre
Fort Cochin
Kathakali actor having his make up appliedto see some Kerelan Martial Arts (called Kalarippayat) and a traditional Kerelan dance (Kathakali), which involves male only actors wearing fabulous costumes and face paints and communicating a story with intricate eye and face movements and sign language in time to the music and drums. It was amazing! You are not allowed to drink alcohol in Fort Cochin (we think it's to do with restaurants not paying for an alcohol permit rather than for religious reasons!) but we managed to find a few places that served us beers hidden in tea pots and tea cups and the food here was amazing!
We spent a day touring the backwaters, another reason Kerela is famous and popular with tourists. The backwaters are thousands of palm tree fringed natural canals and waterways in the countryside that are very beautiful. We opted for a punted tour (less pollution than the motor boats and huge house boats) and had a lovely quiet and peaceful day floating around, watching the locals washing their pots and clothes at the waterside with 6 other people. We stopped at a village and saw how the residents made rope out of coconut husks (for 2 pound a day!) and
Fort Cochin
Dee helping pull up the fishing net had a tour of their veggie patch (not like ours at home, theirs was filled with chilli, okra, curry leaf, nutmeg, vanilla, peppercorn and cinnamon plants!). Ben and Dee bought a litre of Toddy (illegally, of course!), a local 8% beer made from fermenting coconut milk. It looked and smelt rank but they managed to force it down! We had a yummy Thali served on a banana leaf for lunch. Typically, Holly needed the loo right in the middle of the boat ride and with no planned comfort stops for ages, the kind boatman stopped the canoe at a random local house. Holly had to make a dash for it, loo roll in hand, though the garden to the outside loo, much to the astonishment and bemusement of the residents! Good job Kerelans are so easy going!
Great place, could have stayed longer but we had to move on as the beautiful beaches of Varkala were calling us.......
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Brad
non-member comment
Awesome!
Fort Cochin looks amazing! Wish I could have been there to help pull in the nets! Amazing job on the blog, keep up the good work. Lots of Love, Bx