Today was travel from Allepy to Ft Kochi which is 64 k or about 46 miles. Travel time is about 90 minutes and we will be on a freeway! But there were a lot of diversions as they are in the process of building an elevated freeway. That will probably be good for when they have massive rains and monsoons, but what will happen to all of the vendors on the road? Will they just move up to the freeway? Or will they be out of business?
As we drive along, there are coffee and fruit stands, purveyors of what I call crip crap--plastics stuff, and whoever else wants to seek by the side of the road. There is no concept of safety here. I've seen people lie down on the shoulder inches away from the road and a toddler who had his hand in the road and his mom slowly scooped him up. Most of the people on motor bikes wear helmets but on bikes it's hit or miss.
Fort Kochi has been under the control of native people, the Portuguese, then the Dirch and lastly the English before being in the first state Kerala, to join the Indian nation. So, I'm expecting to see all kinds of influences here.
Prasad pulls up to a place that I know is not my hotel and just says museum. It happens to be the Kerala folklore museum that I had on my list of things to see here in Ft Kochi. It's theee floors of artifacts from three cultures -- native, Dutch, and Portuguese -- all of which have lived here at one time or another.
A private collector gathered all of these items including doors from temples and the whole ceiling of a temple. The guide explained to me that the ceiling needs no supporting beams because the wood was all inter locking. The bull heads are supposed to bring good luck when you hang one outside your door. The faces are part of a traditional cermony and they vary according to region.
I was pretty hot and tired by the time I got out of the museum and only managed to buy one bronze turtle and an elephant carved out bulls horn. Supposedly they are hard to find because it is no longer legal to harvest the horns and no one is doing the craft any more. But I keep hearing that so I don't know. I should probably be bargaining more but when I do the conversions, I just don't have the heart.
I was hoping the next stop was the hotel with lunch and a cold shower, but Prasad had other plans. He handed me a brochure about boat trips and off we went. Through lots of twists and turns and narrow unpacked roads as is the norm, we came upon a little marina. Of course there was a snack stand too. It was a busy place as I guess lots of locals wanted to be out on the water on Friday afternoon.
While I was patiently waiting my turn, a man from a large Group also waiting, offered me something. There were four brightly colored squares in a plastic box. I took the purple one. It was a sweet that was from but gooey and contained nuts. It was just the sugar hit I needed at that moment. That group was taking a large boat that tries to look like a replica of the houseboats in Allepy.
They got on their boat and we're waiting and waiting. I finally realized that the driver have left on his motor bike to get gas. It's such a just in time culture here. Some other people came back from a ride and then o on the big boat with them. There was much laughing and carrying on. Clearly some good jokes were going down.
My boat finally arrived and to my surprise, it was just me. I had told the man when I laid that I wanted birds. I did t really care about the packages he was offering. He must have communicated that to the driver because Abandno (?) was vigilant about finding birds and driving over so I could get some photos. We spotted lots of King fishers who are much smaller and more brilliantly colored here. Lots of white egrets, one white heron, one blue, losts of brown herons, water hens and an eagle. So it was a good day.
There were the requisite photo ops and an attempt to go to the refreshment stand which I did not need. He even let me drive the boat for awhile. I hadn't driven a power boat in awhile. I told him I was better at kayaking or sailing.
We also went by a tall building that looked like it had once been apartments but is now in disrepair. He explained it was haunted because someone had committed suicide there. I asked why they so t just tear it down. He shrugged. The newspaper say it is stick on legal limbo and attempts to buy it have fallen through.
After the boat ride, Prasad next attempted to get me to go to a silk and saree store but I was done. I needed to pee for theee hours, I was getting hangry and I was a sweaty mess. So off to the hotel it was.
Another lovely property recommended by my friends here. It's smallest room I've had so far but the bathroom is killer! It had to take two people to heft beautiful black tiles for the shower walls. I did have a shower and then a nap before I ventured upstairs to the bar where there were supposed to be great tapas.
I ordered a red wine from India. I've never heard of India as being a wine powerrhouse, but I gave them a try. I knew it wasn't going to go too well when it arrived quite chilled. I understand in this climate they need to keep it cool--room temperature would not be good. But it was just too cold for a red wine. I asked for snacks and got a tray of Pringles. This is not what the guidebook led me to believe I would be getting here.
I made out much better at the hotel Restaurant for dinner. I had a vegetarian curry and a beetroot halwa for dessert. It was sort of like a beet brownie. It was tasty and the coconut ice cream was a nice foil for it. Then it was an early night.
Comments