Fort Kochi

Date arrived: 28th December 2023

Date Departed: 3rd January 2024

Favourite sight: Folklore Museum

Average Cost: £29.29 PPPD 

In the southern state of Kerala, Fort Kochi is a historical district of the larger city of Cochin. Set at the tip of a promontery, and forming one of the world's best natural harbours, it celebrates a rich cultural legacy of Portugese, Dutch, and British colonialism, coupled with a level of cultural and religious diversity that sees church, mosque and synagogue sit side by side with Hindu and Jain temples. It's also bloody hot!

28th December 2023

We arrived in Cochin at the end of a 15 hour overnight train journey, which was delayed by 4 hours for good measure! This did mean that we got in nearer lunch-time than dawn, so was definitely better for getting to our accommodation and checking in. Cochin is the name of the harbour city, of which Fort Kochi is one historical area, situated on the westernmost promontory, and most easily reached by crossing the waterways via Willingdon Island. All-in all it's about an 11KM tuk-tuk ride, and we were pleasantly surprised that the pre-pay tuk-tuk stand at the railway station a) existed and b) asked a very reasonable fare for this journey - just over £2.

We reached the accommodation to find Colbridge, our host, waiting for us, and he helpfully got us all checked in nice and quickly, and provided some food and activity recommendations. After loosely unpacking, we went for a wander around Fort Kochi, and discovered the fabulous Kochi Kapital Kafe, purveyors of scrambled eggs and potato waffles, and good coffee. We also looked round a few of the main sites, including the harbour, beach, and the intriguing Chinese fishing nets. 

These were well telegraphed in the guide books, but were not what I expected. The main structure was a 20M tall timber A-frame, which supported a massive square net. The net was balanced with counterweights, and very simply the whole thing pivots to lower the net into the water, where it waits for a few minutes, before being pulled back up - hopefully full of fish!

On returning to the room we promptly collapsed for a 90 minute nap! We managed to wake ourselves up and crawl out of bed to get some dinner, and found a really nice, busy little fish restaurant where I had Karimeen Polichattu, a fish curry, cooked and served in banana leaves. This is a local delicacy, and is very good - although very spicy!

29th December

We got up this morning to a hearty breakfast cooked for us by Colbridge's lovely wife, Shaleni. We enjoyed Dosa,tomato and coconut chutneys, toast, and beatifully peppered runny fried eggs - definitely something of a feast! Shaleni gave us some tips on exploring Fort Kochi, and we set out to a nearby areas called Mattancherry, which contains an ancient synagogue with records of jewish travellers ariving in this part of the world in AD70.

We walked across there through some of the more local parts of town, passing fruit shops and butchers, including a line up of fresh goats heads and feet laid out on a table by the roadside. When we reached Mattancherry we also found a hypermarket, with a great range of products available, and were able to stock up on exciting things like razor blades, shower gel, and tea bags. Whoo hoo!

The synagogue was interesting but quite busy, but we also saw a wealth of art cafes and craft shops displaying all sorts of wooden sculptures, brass objects, paintings, and loads of shirts, dresses and fabrics. This would be a great location if you wanted souvenirs. As well as this we explored a massive warehouse of larger, historical Indian pieces, including pillars and beams that you could use to make your own temple, plus carvings of hindu gods in wood, stone and bronze galore. The collection belonged to the Ginger House hotel and restaurant, and we stopped in their beautifully appointed restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately the food was mediocre at best (and expensive) which was surprising.

We walked back through a slightly different part of town, but by now many shops were closed for the afternoon. We did manage to find both an ice cream parlour - which we took advantage of - and a cash machine, though, before getting back to the hotel.

And yes - we did nap again, as the temperature and humidity was ridiculous, genuinely sapping your energy.

For dinner we went to Mary's Kitchen, which is a small and simple rooftop restaurant where we had mango fish and prawn curries. These were really good, and made up for our mediocre lunch!

30th December

Today was a day for museums. We started with the National Maritime Museum, a few minutes away from our accommodation. This is housed in a pair of converted bunkers on the old naval barracks, and talks through a lot of the history of India's navy, which is, of course, inextricably linked with the Royal Navy. There were also some models of contemporary Indian warships, as well as examples of guns and missiles, and a decommissioned Sea King ASW helicopter. It's scary how big those things are when you see them in the flesh!

From here we went to the really quite poor Indo-Portuguese History Museum, which basically comprised bits of churches and pictures of curches. I was very pleased we'd only paid 40 rupees (40p) each to go in. This did put us right in the town centre for lunch however, so we went to the Loafers Cafe, where Julie was able to get the French Toast she'd been craving since seeing it on a menu in Jaipur, and I got - wonder of wonders - a Tuna Sanwich!

We wandered back to the hotel to avoid the worst of the early afternoon heat, and took the opportunity to catch up on some washing, using the twin-tub washing machine upstairs. Two wash loads done and hanging out to dry, and we headed out for dinner. We'd decided to try the local speciality Italian restaurant tonight, where I had a really world class spaghetti bolognese, and Julie very much enjoyed a creamy vegetable pasta dish.

After dinner we followed some of the huge crowds that seemed to be heading through town, initially to the Parade Ground which appeared to be hosting s concert of some description. Leaving this behind we headed south through the very crowded streets and came the the Veli Park, which looked to be he home of the main Carnival celebration. There was a lot going on here in terms of stalls, eateries, traders, and various gigs as well. There were big wheels, various fairground rides, and even what looked like a 'wall of death' show!

Most of it was centred around a fabulously decorated tree at the centre of the Veli.

Heading back to the hotel after visiting the Veli was pretty hectic, but we enjoyed the friendly atmosphere - and were pleased to have shared in the carnival.

31st December

New Year's Eve! We started with a visit to the mainland by Tuk-tuk today to call at the Kerala Folklore museum, which was really eye-opening. The entire building contains the life's work of one man, who collected over 30,000 individual items related to the traditions and history of Kerala, and then in around 2008 erected the building itself, built from various pieces of other buildings, and in a number of regional architectural styles. It's still a privately owned venture, managed entirely by the original creator's family, and in his memory.

From here we came back to Matancherry, where we had lunch at a trendy cafe that did some lovely chiken jerk / barbeque chicken  sandwiches in really tasty brown bread. Mmmm! We did some browsing of a number of the smaller gift shops. and then we visited the Dutch Palace, which was originally a Portuguese palace, but was substantially repaired and refitted by the Dutch during their brief time as caretakers of Cochin. This has a lot of historically intresting exhibits about the history of the region and the various rulers, as well as as some very good murals.

A tuk-tuk back to the hotel avoided the worst of the early afternoon heat, and we relaxed in the room for a bit before heading out for our New Year's Eve celebration.

We started with a well recommended fish restaurant - Oceanos - which was actually pretty heaving, such  that we were seated in what looked like a lunch-time annex. We had a delicious ginger-lime fish dish, although this was somewhat marred by very poor service, including a long wait for cutlery, and our drinks never appearing.

From here we set off in search of a beer, working our way through massively crowded streets as everybody came out to enjoy the big night of the festival. We visited one down-town bar, but turned away as soon as we got close as it was clearly full of groups of young Indian men, partying quite enthusiastically. In the end we had to walk right to the north-east corner of the promontery, but we found a hotel called the Seagull, with a busy but-nice-vibes bar and restarant, where we relaxed with a couple of beers for a bit.

We left at about 11:20 as we wanted to get back to the Parade Ground for the big event of the Carnival - the burning of Papanhi. Papanhi is a giant statue of an old man that is burned exactly at stroke of midnight to  signify the end of a passing year and welcome New Year. This symbolises the burning of all the ills and beginning on a new note. From researching this on the Internet, and asking around, 'the origin of this custom remains ambiguous'.

We later read that the local police has decided to limit the number of people on the Parade Ground to 40,000 this year - which in hindsight explained why there were a lot of road blocks and quite a few police patrols blocking the route there. Ignorant of this, we just smiled nicely and asked if we could pass through to get to our hotel - which worked for some, but not for all. Between this tactic, and yelling "Happy New Year!" to people as we smiled an barged through, we did manage to get to a point where we could see Papanhi burning with just seconds to spare before he went up in smoke!

Working our way through the crowds of enthusiastic carnival goers was a bit easier from this point, and we managed to get back to our hotel for a well-earned night's rest :-)

1st January 2024

A new year dawns on our travels in Fort Kochi! Today we decided to visit the Kerala Kathakali Centre, to see a performance of traditional Keralan theatre. The show starts with the actors putting on their makeup, which is a time consuming process, and fascinating to watch, as they mix dyes using particular rocks and coconut oil, rubbing it onto their skin and then adding accoutrements from shaped paper as they go. 

The MC then proceeded to explain that Kathakali is a form of theatre that has no words, instead using hand and body movements and extreme facial expressions to convey very specific sentiments. One of the case proceeded to demonstrate some of the facial expressions and hand movements used, and the intricacy was very impressive. The whole thing is accompanied by music, with very specific sequences of drum beats adding meaning and addditional emphasis to the movements. 

There followed a short demonstration of a scene where a heavenly being confronts a Demon who is disguised a beautiful maiden, uncovering her and then proceeding to punish her by 'chopping off her nose, lips and breasts.' The whole thing was very intense, with a continuous arrhythmic drum beat, clanging symbols, and word-less  singing accompanying the intricate dancing, hand, and facial expressions of the performers.

After 2 1/2 hours of Kathakali we didn't do a lot more with our day! We returned to the excellent Kapital Kafe Kochi for a late  lunch, where fish tacos were on the menu for me, and were delicious! We stayed in the accommodation for the afternoon, and then came out to dinner to find most cfe's and restaurants closed for new years day. We did manage to find one family restaurant that was open, and again had excellent fresh cooked indian food, arguably better than some of the nominally 'fancier' - and certainly more expensive - restaurants and cafe's we had visited in previous days.

2nd January 2024

As a holiday in Kochi, we knew that quite a lot would be closed today, so we didn't stray to far. We had planned to visit one gallery and art space - but it was closed. Instead we decided to brave the RoRo ferry across the estuary to Vipyn Island - which again is a promontory really - where we did a brief exploration of the shoreline and the array of giant Chinese fishing nets on this side of the estuary. The pictures above are actually from here. We also got a good view of the modern Cochin Container Terminal, just across the water. 

Crossing back on the ferry, which cost all of 3 pence each per trip, we visited a promising looking bakery and cafe, where I couldn't resist an omelette croissant, which tasted fabulous.

In the evening we decided to go back to the Kathakali Centre for their nightly display of Kalaripayattu, the martial art that evolved in Kerala in the 11th to 12th centuries. It's difficult to describe in any detail, but it was very impressive, and muck like the katakhali, I would recommend anybody visiting the area to watch it.

3rd January

We left Fort Kochi in style, in a private taxi. This was taking us to the inland tea-town of Munnar, and came about because we were recommended a homestay there that advertised a 3 day tour which, handily, included collection. We had one last breakfast in the homestay, before saying good bye to our hosts and finding the taxi, then setting off on our 4 hour drive inland.