Southern Comfort

Finally we found a place that we were truly sad to leave.

We spent the last several days in Kochi, a city in Kerala. The main part of the city is on the mainland shore of the harbor and is called Ernakulam. This looked to be a pretty standard downtown of an Indian city, from what we saw in the autorickshaw driving through. The real attraction of Kochi is the Fort Kochi area of town. This area is on a peninsula at the mouth of the harbor, about a 10km rickshaw ride or 20 minute ferry from the main part of town.

The Fort area is still a living, breathing Indian place, but is the quietest, most laid back area of India I have seen. It has a kind of New Orleans charm of rust and decay intertwined with quiet little cafes, big shade trees and open parks used for pick-up Cricket games. The whole atmosphere of the place is a really nice break from India. You can easily walk down the quiet streets, there are a few hawkers and rickshaw men but they are cute and not too annoying. There is a nice little walk along the water with some fish mongers and men working the giant Chinese fishing nets.

The first evening we got there we checked into a guest house called the Chiramel Residency in the middle of town. Our room in this place, for only 1200 rupees (30 dollars) was really great, big with high ceilings and a lot of varnished wood. We also had a semi-private seating area on the second floor sun porch. Really beautiful place.

The first night we had an expensive dinner at the Brunton Boatyard hotel, a swanky luxury place. The atmosphere and the hotel were very nice but I thought the food was a little expensive for what it was. Some of this is that there is a lot of really good food in India for very cheap, so when you pay 400 rupees for a dish you expect a lot. If this food is just good, then you are a little disappointed. Later we had a couple of beers, out of a teapot since no sidewalk cafes have a licence, from a little tourist restaurant on the street.

The next day for breakfast we stumbled upon a place called the Teapot, which was the nicest cafe we have encountered in India. The atmosphere was right out of uptown New Orleans and the tea, cold muslix (a rare treat in India) and chocolate cake (an even more rare treat) were all excellent. We ate breakfast here every day. I also got in a run after breakfast everyday which felt really good for my declining physique. Very little "crazy westerner" staring, which was also very nice.

For lunch that day we did the touristy thing and bought fresh prawns from the fish mongers near the ocean walk and brought them to a cheap restaurant to cook them. For 350 rupees, 200 for the raw material and 150 for the cooking, we ended up with 10 giant shrimp and 2 prawns the size of a small lobster. They were grilled with spices as they like to do down here and were excellent.

We later tried to go to the old Synagogue, which was closed for a Jewish holiday. It was fine however because there were a ton of really great shops near the Synagogue selling really cool old stuff. These shops had a lot of great carvings and other very uniquely Indian stuff. It was a little like being in Dave and Susan's shop, except more focused on Indian then British colonial.

That night we went to a short performance of a Kathakali play. A Kathakali play is a kind of traditional Keralan dance/play with continuous music and intricate make-up. This one was aimed at tourists so was only a 1 hour excerpt from a 8 hour play that they perform at temple ceremonies. One cool thing is that they put on the make-up on stage before the play, so you can see the crazy stuff that the make-up artists have to do to create these mythic figures. The show was good as well, the drums could be a little ear-piecing at times, but the energy shown by the dancers and musicians was very impressive.

The next couple of days we were quite a bit lazier, mainly just walking around and reading and relaxing. We did give some rupees to one of the Chinese fishing net guys to let us help drop the net and rise it, as well as look around the giant contraption. The real revelation of these two days was the little restaurant next to the hotel called "Dal Roti" that was not in any book, as it had only been opened for a few months. We ate there twice for lunch, and it was probably the best place we have eaten in India. It is the retirement project of this really nice shipping exec who we also talked to a lot. Nisha is going to cover it in its own post.

I realize that I rambled on a little bit about this place and nothing that I said may seem that impressive. However, this was really the first place that in India that I really liked in a no reservations, I would not mind living there kind of way. It does not really have that many impressive monuments or sights, but the place itself is the attraction. That is a nice change of pace sometimes when you often go to a drab city just to see the temple or palace.