Kochi, my first experiance of India

I was very surprised when I was traveling from Muscat to Kochi.  Usually plane rides are pretty standard things.  People read books, watch movies and sleep, sometimes get up and go to the bathroom, but this wasn’t the case with my flight.  Everyone was up and about.  Walking around the plane, sitting/standing in the aisles.  Often times people wouldn’t listen to the flight attendants, or just follow basic rules.  For example: quite a few people were on their phones and stood up to get their luggage before we even landed.  It was a bit weird.

I was very lucky to have Leo pick me up from the airport.  He had already been in Kochi for a couple of days and knew his way around, which was very important when finding our hostel.  It was two hours from airport by bus. Yuck!  But at least it was in a nice part of town.  The people at the hostel were really nice too.  They helped us book a tour and gave us advice on where to go next. 

Walking around Kochi was nice, but for some reason I imagined India much differently.  Kochi was very touristy.  This is surprising because I had never heard of it until Leo told me it was the cheapest place to get a flight from Korea. 

We did a fair amount of sight seeing.  The local fishermen use Chinese fishing nets in the river to catch fish.  They lower and raise them every twenty minutes or so.  When they do this, they catch fish in the current.  I only saw small catches though.  Leo got to help them out with raising the net, for a small fee of coarse.  I could have too, but I just enjoyed watching them. 

curried garbanzo beans

I also had my first real Indian food in Kochi.  And it didn’t turn out to be that good.  I had a squid curry, that was super salty and then curried garbanzo beans.  That wasn’t a meal and way too spicy for me to eat.  I was promised great food, and it was to come.  Just not in Kochi.  Leo had more luck with the curries and the fishes he ordered. 

My first day (not night) there we went for a walk.  We walked along the boardwalk at first and that’s where we saw the Chinese fishing nets, but the walk wasn’t very pretty.  The beach was full of garbage, and people were collecting it.  Do you know what they did after they collected it?  They dumped it back in the ocean.  : /  Really, that is not helping.  You never know though.  Maybe they were looking for something specific. 

On the coastal walk we also saw an old Dutch cemetery.  It was… ya know old, and stuff.  So not impressive.  It was pretty because of the architecture and the moss growing on all the stones.  But that was it.  I was not awed by my travel guide I had downloaded.  Maybe the next attraction would be better.

 I had read online that Jew town was supposed to be interesting, so we headed in that direction.  It was a bit of a walk, but we found lots of interesting things along the way.  I thought it was amazing that I could tell what people selling by the smell.  We went past the spice street, with huge bags of everything you can imagine just hanging out.  I bought a small bag of spices there and Leo got some ginger candy for his students.  We also got to see how they dry ginger.  We were confused at what it was at first, because it’s coated in white powder.  They just let it hangout in the sun on tarps.  After that we went past a perfume street, that was potent.  I don’t wear perfume, so that street was a loss for me except for the smell.  I thought when I went to India I was supposed to smell refuse.  I guess it was a good choice to go in the winter and wander pungent streets of spice and oil. 

Along the way we found the old Dutch palace. This was also in my tour guide and also was a disappointment.  I mean it was grand and sprawling, even had a giant decorative pond, but it was in ruins.  I guess the city stopped maintaining it a few years ago and now it’s just a museum.  We didn’t go in to the museum.  People had told us it wasn't that interesting, and why pay money for that?

 Now our final destination was supposed to be cool because it is the oldest community of Jews in India, possibly dating all the way back to King Solomon.  But this did not end up being that thrilling either.  This may have been because we couldn’t find it at first.  You know... walking in circles.  That’s me everywhere I go, and Leo didn’t seem to mind.  But when we did find Jew town, basically it was a temple you had to pay to enter.  It also had a street full of shops and people trying to sell you things.

The end of our day redeemed everything.  I mean I like walking around everywhere I go.  But I was looking forward to something more… Indian.  After we got back and chilled for a while we met some other backpackers and invited them out for dinner.  It was a nice time out, dinner and beers with all the awkward silence of people who don’t know each other.  I enjoy meeting people from new places, even though I don’t talk much.  Everyone has a story to tell.  No matter how mundane they think it is, it’s different than mine.

The next day was our backwaters tour.  We had booked it with the hostel and the van picked us up.  I love it when I don’t have to hassle with finding buses or rickshaws.  They drove us an hour and a bit outside the city to a small town, where they dropped us off next to the river. 



We were traveling on a house boat with 8 other people.  A French couple and their children, a Swedish woman and I don’t remember where the other lady was from.  The French couple was awesome.  They come to India every year, this year they were staying for 5 months.  It made me wonder what their job was that they were able to travel all the time with their children.  

 We got to see the backwaters on a small house boat.  I really liked this day, it was so relaxing.  The tour guide explained things we passed, but overall it was just sitting in a boat enjoying the scenery.

Our tour guide took us to everything coconut related.  Our first stop was to watch the locals de-husk the coconuts in order to make oil.  They first remove the outer layer, this part is pretty fibrous and can easily be done with a sharpened stake.  After they removed the outer husk, they then opened the coconut split it and set it in the sun for a few weeks, until the meat dried and disconnected from the shell.  During this process they have to cover the coconut in netting to prevent birds from eating it.  If it’s during the rainy season they have smoking ovens they use to do the same thing as the sun.  There is also a processing plant they can sell the prepared coconuts to as well.

While we were at the husking spot our guide also showed us how they make coconut beer.  For this they have to make a small incision in the flower and then let it ferment for about a day.  If you harvest the juice early it isn’t very alcoholic and children drink it.  If you harvest the juice later it’s super alcoholic, almost like moonshine.  Alcohol is hard to get in many places in India, so I have a feeling that lots of people make their own coconut liquor.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to try any.  Next time I go back I’ll have to make a point of it. 

 The next place we went to was lunch and rope making from the husks of coconut.  Making coconut rope is like spinning wool.  They have two wheels they use to bind the fibers together and then they combine two of these “threads” to make a rope.  The rope is pretty darn strong.  But of coarse before they do all that, they have to process the coconut husk.  They usually soak it in water for 3 months, then dry it out.  Talk about patient.  It seems like everything they do involves patience with coconuts. 

Lunch was fab.  They served it on a banana leaf.  I love Asia so much!  It was rice (of course) a type of stewed curry on top, picked mango, coconut curry and vegetable salad with coconut sauce and a crispy bread.

After our delicious meal, our guide showed us some plants that natively grow in the Kerala area.  We saw pepper, turmeric, vanilla, and a few more.  I always like to know what the actual plant looks like.  After a short walk around the village we were off again to cruise around.  We were taken to one of the largest backwater lakes in Kerala.  Now these are called backwater lakes because 1/2 the time they are freshwater and 1/2 the time they are saltwater.  It depends on the rainy season. The locals call the area "the Venice of the East" because nearly everyone uses boats to get around the extensive, river, lakes and canals.   

The last thing we saw on the boat was oyster mining.  The locals are always looking for oysters in the muddy bottoms of the numerous lakes in Kerala.  We saw quite a few on Vembanad Kayal, and saw many of shells they had discarded along the way.  Nothing is wasted in this country.  The discarded shells are later used to make chalk.

When we got back to landing we had to wait a little bit for our van, so the tour guide took us to a nearby teashop.  We all had a marsala tea (chai) and I tried a sweet curry pastry.  This was a nice ending to our trip to Kochi.