Kochi Tour

 The Dutch Palace.

 A mural painting in the palace.

 The touristy shopping area.

 The Cochin Jewish Synagogue.

 Chinese fishing nets.

 Local fishermen fixing their nets.

 Fishermen who asked me to take their picture.

 The catch.

 St. Francis Catholic Church.

A neighbourhood street.

 The Kathakali Show.

Thursday, March 8^th.

Today we had a tour of the Kochi area. We visited a number of different sites. Thoufeeq had hired a local guide named Peter, who was excellent and provided us with lots of information. The first stop was what was called the ‘Dutch Palace’. It was originally built by the Portuguese in 1555 and given to the local king, Vera Kerala Varma, in order to pacify and compensate him after they had plundered a temple in the area. Then followed the Dutch and then the British, who either destroyed it or remodelled it. The royal family used it for about two hundred years before they were removed from power, after which they faded into professional careers as lawyers and doctors. We were allowed to take photos in the first room (where the painting I took was) but we were not allowed to take pictures in the museum section of the palace, but the walls were covered in murals that dated back 2 or 3 hundred years and depicted the story of the god Shiva and lesser gods. The ceilings were all made from teak. There was a whole section on the family tree of the maharaja and his descendants.

Our next stop was in ‘Jew Town’. We visited the Paradesi Synagogue which was built in 1568 by descendants of Spain, Dutch and other European Jews. It has served as a functioning synagogue throughout the centuries and ‘preserves a unique record of Jewish presence in India. We were not allowed to take photos inside, but the floor was covered in blue tiles from China, the ceiling had dozens of chandeliers from Venice, which shows the amount of trade that happened in this region. The Jews were very successful traders and brokered deals from the both the east and the west.

Next was the Chinese fishing nets on the shore of the Arabian Sea. These are large wooden structures which are raised and lowered using rock counterweights and man power. The large square net is allowed to sink below the surface, sit there for a while and then raised again, hopefully with fish in it. When it comes up a number of egrets eagerly fly in and pick off as many fish as possible. We watched the nets being pulled up a couple of times, and didn’t see a whole lot of fish. It seemed to me that the area was over fished, and the nets are not easily relocated. We also watched the fishermen mending nets and displaying their catch, which sadly also including a number of baby, one foot long sharks.

Our last stop was at St. Francis Catholic Church which was originally built by the Portuguese and famously holds the tomb of Vasco Da Gamma, the first explorer to sail around Africa. He died here of gonorrhoea. His body was later exhumed by his son and repatriated to Portugal. However, the original tombstone is still here. The church was made into a Protestant church, was later destroyed and then rebuilt by the British.

After that we stopped at the Loafers Lounge for a snack. Then the women wanted to stay in the area to shop and John and I went back on the bus with Thoufeeqm to get away from the 37 degree heat. We had lunch at a restaurant near our hotel called Ceylon and then crossed the street to go the Cocoa Café for a coffee and a sticky date pudding. We returned to the hotel and caught up on some e-mails before meeting Thoufeeq again in the lobby to go back to the same area to see a cultural dance presentation. This was very different from Sri Lanka and was actually more like Bali, with lots of face makeup and facial gestures. The first twenty minutes was just one guy sitting on a chair and making facial and eye gestures to reflect different emotions to the beat of a drummer. The second section was two performers acting out a small part of an apparently long Hindu drama. It too was all facial gestures and no dialogue at all. Very strange.

Then we went to a local restaurant and I had a delicious prawn in a tomato sauce dinner with coconut rice. Then back to the hotel by our bus for the night.