Chinese Net & Kathakali

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Geo: 10.012, 76.2251

Today at the breakfast room, we met some Jewish visitors who were making a pilgrimage to the Jewish Synagogue. After breakfast we all gathered in our air conditioned coach to see Kochi city. Kochi is a cluster of islands on the vast expanse of the Vembanad Lake and is the commercial capital of Kerala, It is actually a loose agglomeration of townships connected by waterways and its natural situation among the waterways and backwaters makes it picturesque.


We were taken to the oldest Jewish Synagogue called the Paradesi Synagogue which is locally called as the Jew Town, the Jewish Synagogue has beautiful hand painted Chinese tiles which do not resemble one another. The synagogue has rolls of Old Testament, a Belgian chandelier old copper plates, beautifully carved silver and golden crowns. We had to remove our footwear to get in the Synagogue. Then we visited the St. Francis Church which is the oldest European Church in India, the Santa Cruz Basilica built by the Portuguese, the Dutch Palace and the Spice market.


We had banana pancakes for lunch which were delicious and we changed our currency at the Jew town. It was interesting to see the Indian buildings and many remnants of the Portuguese English building which told of Kochi's colonial past. We stopped to see the women making the coir and eco-friendly coir products like mats and carpets, I bought some small beautiful mats for souvenirs.

Then we headed to Fort Cochin for a ferry ride, Kochi has one of the finest natural harbours and we were very lucky to see many jumping dolphins which was such a delight. This was such a big bonus as I had never seen the Dolphins in nature habitat, Awesome!! We also saw the local fisherman operating the old Chinese nets on the blue horizon and after the ferry ride we watched the sunset from the promenade by the harbour which was enchanting and so magical.

At the hotel we were spoilt for choice for dinner which had both Indian and western dishes, then we were taken to the Kathakali Theatre to see the Kathakali.


Kathakali


Kathakali is a dance which is characterised by an innovative style of story-telling, elaborate costumes and extensive make-up. I found it very intriguing, I think it must take the actors long time to do the make up and to remove it as well, I really enjoyed the dance and everybody in our group were happy, I was so lucky to have been blessed with such wonderful positive people in my tour who looked out for one another, I could not imagine being stuck on a tour with a bunch of Whingers!!

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