Fort Cochin
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008Right – this entry is from a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure it shouldn’t distress you too much to think back that far. As I mentioned before we arrived late into fort cochin. The journey from the bus stop in Ernakulam (Main part of Cochin) to the Fort (which is a penisula) took alot longer than we expected it to. It was a good 40 minutes in a rickshaw before we pulled up on Burgher street right in the middle of the action. Its Xmas week so you can imagine what it was like trying to find accomodation. We did find a place eventually Hotel Anjuna which was a little pricey but at that time of night you are just happy to get a place. It was only free until the 23rd so we had 3 nights to make the most of Fort Cochin.
After breakfast the following morning myself and adonai headed off for a walk while the others took care of their own business. We walked down to the shore of the port which was crawling with people. Dotted along the shore were several chinese fishernets, massive contrapments they use a counterweights (usually scrawny indian men) to lower the nets into the deep harbour before pulling out whatever the hell was in there. It was fascination to see this mechanism in action. We continued our walk out west past the fishermen on onto the beach where a few brave souls were swimming through what can only have been dieseled up water.
It was quite beautiful. All the time we were being stopped for photos or ‘Hello sir, How are you today?’
We spent about 2 hours walking around the headland through what was easily the most affluent area of india that I have been to, some of the houses would have fitted right in malibu, blackrock or lavagh!!! There is a very strong portugese influence in Cochin, Vasco the Gama is buried here (i think), there are many many churches and alot of the people had portugese names.
There is a tradition in Kerala and esp here in cochin to buy your fish straight of the fishermen when they return in the evenings from their days work then bring the fish to a restaurant of your choice where they will cook it for you for a nominal fee – thus cutting out the middle man. So that was the plan of action for the night. I let the guys pick a fish and negotiate a price as I stood back and observed – I know nothing about fish so thought it best to keep the head down low. Eventually they secured a massive red snapper which weighed 3 kilos plus a load of calimari and king prawns. I got talking to this local kid called ricardo who was touting his restaurant, I managed to negotiate a good fee for cooking the lot plus also a discount on whatever beer we drank – as I say everything is up for negotiation 🙂
The fish was absolutely phenomenal. Cooked in garlic, lemon and ginger with a healthy dose of butter and a pinch of salt – man my mouth is watering as I type. SO so so tasty – nicest fish ever. It fed 4 of us and cost all included 8 euro.
The following day was another corker, got up late for breakfast. The rest of the crew were already halfway thru their porridge but someone had lost something belonging to someone else so there was a bit of tension. They were grown up so I let them deal with it while I headed off with marika for a walk around the other darker poorer side of cochin. We walked east along the coast this time, my plan, which I kept to myself was to get as lost as possible and spend our time walking around trying to find our way home. We had a great time over the next couple of hours, the people in total contast to the affluent areas were so friendly and nice. They just don’t get tourists walking these streets because it is so off the beaten track that when they do see you they come running over to shake your hand or want to get their picture taken. One guy brought his whole family out on the street to get a family portrait – I still have his address so I will have to try and post that back to him when I get the chance. After the photo he started to bring out all the house decorations he had, it was quite bizaare but again really humbling. We walked on and came across a reading room which basically was a dirty old lit room with 4 old men sitting there going through the daily newspaper – Paddy Joe you would love it!! We passed by the dogiest butcher and what looked like a one legged chicken that I figured had escaped the evil clutches of the victualler, turns out it actually had 2 legs, crap story I know, I guess you really had to be there. We made our way back eventually to the hotel. We bought some tickets for the Karikali performance that night in the local theatre. We read all the blurb about it, about the guys having to train for years before they could take to the stage about how it is such a reknown art form etc etc. So that was the plan for the evening. We sat into this place at about 5 and it didn’t finish till well after 8 and it was the single greatest load of crap I have ever laid my eyes on, luckily enough it was so bad that it was hilarious. It reminded me of the one man play that the dudes landlord puts on in the middle of the big lebowski – 3 grown men jumping around shaking branches and shreeking like 7 year old girls….
That night I met the first irish tourist in india (brendan doesn’t count) – Kevin from wexford. Hasn’t lived in ireland for 40 years but still had the accent. Watched liverpool vs portsmouth in his company though it was hard to concentrate on the soccer as his accounts of his travels were something else. He arrived in india 35 years about with 250 irish pounds in his pocket and spent 18 months here, lived for months in Goa before there was a sinner there, spent a week sleeping on the floor of the Golden temple in Amritsar, spent 3 months sleeping rough in Karachi before landing a job on an african cargo vessel on which he got to see pretty much every port there is to see in the world.
With that brought an end to our time in Fort Cochin, it also spelt the end of our travelling group. Marika flew back to holland just in time for Xmas and Homer and Dana took their seperate path. So it was down to me and the crazy peruvian and a trip down the coast to Allepy to take in the famous backwaters of Kerala.
Phil Gill