Even the locals seem confused when it comes to what you call this place. Cochin is the old British name for this city, Kochi is the traditional and offical name. I’m glad we got that sorted. 🙂
This morning we headed out at about 9:30 to explore this old Spice “Road” city on the Malabar coast of southwest India. The city is about 500 years old and has been ruled by the Portugese, the Dutch and the British, before gaining independence with the rest of India. From what our guide has told us the most interesting part of the city is what they call Fort Cochin, or the old city.
The first thing we did when we got close to the old part of town was walk down to the waters edge and dip our fingers into the Arabian Sea. It’s a little ritual we have developed over the years, see a new body of water we have never seen before, and dip our toes or fingers in it. 🙂 (except the Ganges mum which was too dirty!)
After that we walked to the markets in the old Fort area. That was facinating, while there were lots of touristy trinket stalls, the best part was the local fish market. Where the catch of the day was being sold to the locals. They had many familiar fish there, including snapper, squid, crabs, shark, tuna, cuttlefish and giant freshwater scampie, and a whole lot of new varieties we had never seen before. It was so colourful with the fisher men repairing their nets, sitting around their boats just shooting the breeze and some still fishing from the shore with the huge chinese style dip nets, that took about 6 of them to operate. As we left the markets there were some men working on an electrical transformer in the street, one of them must have done something wrong, because all of a suddne there were sparks flying everywhere and the men didn’t know what or where to touch to stop it all. I think they fried the transformer. 🙂
We had a look inside the old Dutch Palace, which is now a museum tracing the timeline of rulers of the city. Interesting contents, but the Dutch apparently need lessons in Palace building!!! Not really what you envisage a palace to be. It was right next door to the city Synagogue, the oldest continually used synagogue in India, built in the 1560’s, but because it was Saturday, we couldn’t have a look inside, it’s not much to look at from the outside, but apparently has some interesting features inside. The Old Fort is now owned by the government and is pretty run down, so much so, that it is all locked up and you can’t visit it. We called into a church called St Francis Church, built in 1503 and for a brief time held the body of Vasco da Gama, a famous Portugese explorer. He laid at rest there for 14 years before his son had his body taken home. He died at the age of 64 from malaria. (Good job we have Malaria tablets) Deb went to put some money in the poorbox in the church and really struggled to get it in, it was so full. What a great thing that is. 🙂 We saw a few local school sports being played, both a soccer and cricket match, they were both well supported by crowds and the play was very spirited. 🙂
On the way back to our hotel we drove passed an old Dutch cemetary, now closed and locked, but it was full of very large and at one time ornate stone caskets. Next we stopped in an area called Princess St, its a backpackers delight, with many very cheap B & B’s and very colourful shops, selling everything from bulk spices (So aromatic), to brass ornaments and of course the usual fabrics and trinkets, we really enjoy the vibe and life of these places.
The last place we went to was one of the highlights, a community laundry. The people who work here are of the lowest “Class” or “Cast” and work here on the basis of 20 Rp per finished item (That’s washed, dried and folded or ironed for 30c – the hotels make a very good mark up on that!). The clothes are all washed in big old stone wash tubs using the old methods of pounding and rubbing to get them clean. They are then dried in the sun on rows and rows of clothes lines (or using huge heaters when its raining). The ironing is done by one of two ways, using an electric (non-steam) iron, or a coconut charcoal fuel heated iron, the later is very heavy and very hot to hold. Deb had a nice conversation with one of the women working there, without actually talking, the woman had a very good sense of humour. We then went back to the hotel for a relaxing afternoon. We caught up with a few people on Facetime, which was good. Tomorrow we head off to Munnar, where we will be staying in a Cardamom Plantation that is surrounded by some of the worlds highest Tea Plantations. Our tour information tells us its a 3 1/2 drive there, our driver thinks more like 6hrs!! We understand the roads are very poor as we are just at the end of the monsoon period. So we will try to get away by 8.30am tomorrow.
