Fort Cochin

---

Had a great time in Fort Cochin and the surrounding area. I had planned to only spend a few days there but I really liked it so stopped for a week.

Its very quiet very little traffic with lots of small alleyways to wander and get lost in.

Apart from tourism and the port fishing seems to be the main occupation. Their using three ways. Longlining from small boats which seems to catch a lot of fairly big fish. The traditional chinese nets that have become a sort of symbol of Kerala. Good for catching lots of small fish pretty quickly, and the even older hand netting method which seems to me to be more an excercise in wishfull thinking than a method of fishing.

I watched three blokes for an hour. Sort out the net, pick out any bits from the last go, make sure all the weights are hanging properly at the bottom, wait for just the right moment and then with a very elaborate twirll swing the whole thing round your head and let go. Then very carfully draw the net in to make sure the bottom weights close up the neck of the net and voila.....sod all. Repeat this fifty times, catch nothing, give up and head home to tell the misses to get down the market and buy some. Maybe they were just having a bad day or maybe the sound of me laughing my head off was putting them off!!

I've a feeling something is living in my foot. I have a small little lump right in the middle of my sole which itches like you wouldn't believe. Been trying to have a poke at it but not as supple as I used to be so can't quite get to grips with it. May take it off to see a medic and see what they think.

Anyway Fort Cochins great so if your passing on a slow boat from Bombay drop in and get your self some Kerala style fish curry and rice very nice..

After leaving Kochi (Fort Cochin, somebody keeps changing all the place names) I moved on to Alappuzha (Alleppey, they've changed that one as well) which is one of the stagging post for the rice house boat trips on the backwaters of Kerala. Didn't take one myself as its not a cheap thing to do on your own, but did have a nice time wandering about the canels alot of which seem so choked with weeds is a wonder how they get a boat along them at all. I stayed at an old heritage home run by a very nice chap called Biju and his familly. Lots of pollished dark hard wood, deckchairs on the veranda with pots of steaming tea served in the afternoons.....marvalous.

I have now moved on again but will write more of that in the next day or two or maybe later today if I can muster the energy.

---