Pete & Rach's Big Trip: Kochi: 13-14 and 17 Jan 2013

Artwork on the walls of the Kathakali Centre

Rach says:

We arrived in India after two horrible flights. In Kuala Lumpur we had to land through a lightning storm and it was the worst turbulence I've ever known. The plane dropped quite suddenly at one point and half the people on the plane gasped. I was really nervous about our next flight and that turned out to be a bumpy ride too. On the upside, we spotted the illuminated Petronas towers from the plane
window.

Saj Earth Resort through the peep hole!

After landing at midnight, we straightaway checked in to the nearby Saj Earth Resort. It was a short but slightly unnerving taxi ride from the airport - at one point a group of men jumped into the road and tried to stop the car, but the driver just sped on. The car bomb check on the way into the hotel was a reminder that we were now in a country that suffers from considerable terrorism. The resort itself was quite upmarket; it had an awesome pool and our room was on an island in the middle - it made us wish we were staying longer.

The next day, our taxi dropped us off at the ferry crossing for the quaint Portuguese colonial town of Fort Cochin, where we bought our 3 rupees (3p) tickets - our cheapest purchase yet! Our first impressions were that Kerala is very very green - like the thick Koh Phangan jungle, but with houses, roads and railways laid through it. Religion also feels very prominent here; we were surprised to see churches everywhere - the most we have seen since leaving the UK - and discovered that 19% of the state's population is Christian. There are Bible quotes painted on walls and the buses have "Jesus" and "Gift of God" written across the top of the windscreens.

Fort Cochin

Chinese Fishing Nets, introduced from Macau by Portuguese colonists

Pete says:

Fort Cochin is fairly small and we soon got to grips with the layout of the central area. Along the coast are the famous Chinese fishing nets, which are interesting to watch but seem very ineffective and no-one ever catches more than a handful of fish with each attempt. There are some "Catch and Cook" market stalls along the front where you can have a fish cooked up to eat straight away. From what I saw this mostly involved a man just going and cooking the fish on a tiny fire in the nearby park. We didn't try it ourselves. Many eagles fly around the area and come down quite low looking for fish. We also saw a camel on the small (and rubbish filled) beach, being used for rides. There were a lot of other people out and about taking evening strolls, but compared to the other places we had visited so far I felt a bit more out of place and conspicuous.

Camel rides on the beach

We were very unsure of where we should and shouldn't eat in India, due to the tales of stomach problems we had heard. Our guest house recommended Oceanus restaurant and the food was delicious. The fish and vegetable curries were nothing like the Indian food we get at home - much lighter and less buttery, made with coconut milk instead of cream and yoghurt. There were "Christian curries" including vindaloo on the menu, which we think means curries influenced by the Portuguese, who first introduced the chilli pepper to India. I always thought vindaloo was something invented in England to feed drunk people!

Most depressing bar ever?

The alarming discovery was that there was no beer or wine on the menu - just water or soft drinks. After noticing this at Oceanus we began to see, with mounting horror, that nowhere in town appeared to serve alcohol!! Obviously our first thoughts were for emergency repatriation through the insurance company. It turned out that there was one tiny and very grim bar in town, where men sat alone to down a few drinks (and curry peas) before leaving. The rules on selling alcohol vary from state to state across the country but it came as a surprise as I had thought of Indians as beer drinking people.

On our last day, we paid an auto-rickshaw driver to take us on a tour of the Mattancherry district. There was a place filled with ginger dust where people were chopping it up for the spice market, a church, laundry, synagogue and a few other places. The driver only wanted about 50 pence for two hours of driving us around. Tipping at this low price was something I found awkward. 50p is nothing so shall I just give him a pound? But that's doubling the agreed cost! Then again adding 10 or 20p (which is what a local advised) seemed ridiculous. It's that familiar problem of knowing roughly what would be fair and correct locally and balancing it against the fact that the amount is almost nothing to us.

Traditional Kathakali costume and make-up

Rach says:

One evening, we went to see the traditional Kathakali "Story Play", a combination of sign language and dance played out to music to tell a simple story. We were given handouts beforehand, so we had some idea of what was going on. The actors applied colourful make-up made from ground-up stones mixed with coconut oil and put chundanga seeds under their lower eyelids to turn the whites of their eyes red (makes me feel funny just thinking about it!). Then they gave an impressive demonstration of eye movements and facial muscle movements, which up until that point I would have thought humanly impossible - it was amazing! Combined with the mudras (hand gestures), these form the main 'expressions' in Kathakali: love, sarcasm, sadness, anger, bravery, fear, repulsion, wonder and peace.

Notes:

1 rupee = 1 pence. Easiest conversion rate yet!
Cheap tuk-tuks! The shops also seemed to offer fair prices (not a blatant rip-off anyway!)
Many people in Kerala speak the local language Malayam, Hindi AND English (the two official languages).
The Daffodil Homestay was a great, friendly and welcoming place to stay and I would recommend it to anyone.
Tea with milk! It was a treat after so long.