Little Lisbon

We arrived in Kochi yesterday more than an hour earlier than we thought we would. According to our guidebook it should have taken five hours by the train. What may be even more miraculous was that the train was on time! Actually there were two trains on time. Both the Mumbai to Kanyakumari train and the one from Kanyakumari to Mumbai were arriving within three minutes of each other in Varkala and were indeed there at the times scheduled. This is a first for us in India.

After some negotiation witht the tuk-tuk driver we got a ride to our reserved hotel. It is good that we reserved because the driver was so hopeful that we would need his help to find a hotel - of course if we were to take his advice the price of the hotel would go up to pay his commission. He even tried to get our hotel to acknowledge his delivering us, but they were having none of it, thank heaven.

We went over several quite modern bridges on our way to Fort Cochin where our hotel is located, until finally the driver pulled up at the edge of the water. For a moment we were nonplussed until we realized that this was a ferry embarkation point and we were going to get a little sea voyage. (It takes less than five minutes to cross the water from the island we were on to the Fort Cochin peninsula.) Unfortunately for one of the motorcyclists hoping to get on the ferry, the pilot took off a little early and he drove off the dock onto the edge of the rocks. Everyone on the ferry watched as the poor man tried to figure out how to get his motocycle back on to the land. He didn't fall into the briny luckily, if one can call that luck.

And if I'm lucky, here's a picture of Geordie standing on the deck of the ferry among the people and the vehicles.


Kochi is a great surprise. It is really quite charming and the buildings make it feel as if we are in some small village in Europe. Of course it was once a Portuguese port and the influence they had along with the Dutch who arrived later to take over and the English who took over after that. This may not be a perfect picture but it does give a little of the flavour of the town. Many of the buildings are low, one story or two story affairs some with mouldering walls and some with fresh coats of paint, but all with red tiled roofs showing the signs of their age.



This is really a very old town of course. This afternoon on our walk we visited the Church of St. Francis where Vasco da Gama was buried after his death on Christmas Eve, 1524. (Check out his biography.) His gravestone is still in the church although his body was removed to Lisbon about 14 years after he died. Here's an interior view of the church today; it too went through Portuguese, Dutch and English hands although today it's under the aegis of the Church of South India which is we think similar to the Church of England. A plaque on the wall celebrates the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.




St. Francis wasn't the only church we saw. Here's a picture of the facade of Santa Cruz of which I have little history. It does have a more interesting facade than that of St. Francis, and is, I think, a Basilica now.




While we were visiting Santa Cruz, we ran into a wedding - one of many we have seen on our travels. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera at the time, and when I went back with it although the wedding was still in progress the priest was intoning - no doubt enjoining them to go out and mulitply. I got a nice photo of four of the young women ahead of me in the church, and one of the interior for you too.





We ate breakfast today at a place called The Teapot, a little bit of merrie olde England perhaps with many many teapots decorating the place - even one with Henry VIII on it. Across the street we watched as children arrived to start school. They all wear uniforms and since there were several schools in the neighbourhood we got to see several different styles. Later in the afternoon we were on our way back from a little wander when we ran into a group of school children on their way home by tuk-tuk. One of them ran up and asked for a picture. So here they are, with their bookbags hanging from the side of the vehicle and them all crammed inside.



A last little bit of history for you. Kochi is famous for its amazing fishing nets which are a legacy of Kublai Khan. Yes, you read right. This process of fishing was brought here by the Chinese centuries ago. The nets are huge affairs which are made from large wooden pieces, lots of rope, stone counterweights, a large net, and the strength of four men is needed to operate them. We watched the men who put their backs into raising the huge nets from the sea, then go out to the nets to scoop up the fish which have found their way inside. The crows find it very exciting too, and they love to swoop in to grab up the tiny fish which would of course not be much use to the fishermen and would no doubt be thrown back in.





This has been a nice photo heavy blog. Hope you enjoy seeing some of what we see. Tomorrow we are going on a backwater cruise from here, on one of the old converted rice boats which have been pressed into service for the tourists these days. I'm hoping for lots of interesting pictures since we will also get to do a little canoe touring to small villages along the way. Since this has been such a successful picture loading place you may well get another load day after tomorrow with some of the images from our 7 hour trip. Until then I leave you with this image of the Arabian Sea as the sun starts to get lower. I thought it looked wonderful, my art photo for today.