Kochi/Fort Cochin

When we arrived in Kochi, the guesthouse we wanted to stay at was full, but the owner, not wanting to turn away paying guests, unhesitatingly gave us the key to his late mother's room instead. There weren't actually sheets on the beds but there was a whole closet full of sheets so we just took our pick. There were also about twenty chairs and tables, a corner full of photos of the owner's mother, and a huge shrine featuring a 3D image of Jesus shooting lasers from his fingertips.



It was one of the weirder places we've stayed. The next morning we asked to move into a more normal room, not so much because we didn't like the room but because we didn't like the size of the spider we discovered in the room full of boxes that separated the bedroom from the bathroom!

Kochi (or specifically Fort Cochin, the area of the city that we stayed in) is a peaceful little town on the Kerala coast with lots of pretty European architecture and some picturesque (but not particularly effective as far as we could tell) Chinese fishing nets, which it's famous for. (Picture by Paul)



Walking around the town it felt more like Europe than India at times. We stayed a couple of nights before going up into the hills to Munnar.

Heading to Work in a Rice Paddy

Kerala backwaters, morning.

Backwaters Sunrise

Judging from our conversations with other travelers, I'm not the only one who took a million photos of the sunrise. I tried to restrain myself. Anyway, here are three.

Rachel in a Rice Paddy

In the backwaters.

On the Backwaters

Backwaters Church

As mentioned below, we rented a houseboat in Alleppey. It's a bit hard on the budget, but not too expensive really, and it makes for a great time. You head out on a boat that looks like a cross between a bamboo hut and the submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and cruise the backwaters of Kerala for a day. The backwaters are essentially a series of waterways connecting Kerala's villages like a road network.

Over the past decade or so, the trip has become a firm fixture on the tourist route. We debated whether or not it was weird to be on a trip that involved peering in on people's lifestyles, though at this point everyone's pretty much used to it. Actually, we regretted not staying around an extra day to do a canoe trip down some of the smaller canals. Still, the scenery is gorgeous and the atmosphere serene.

Our boat, tied up for the evening beside a rice paddy

At night you park on a lake and watch the sunset:

Photo by Rachel

The food is outstanding - traditional Keralite cuisine - rice, fish, vegetables, dal, flavored with cardomom and other spices.

Backwaters dinner. Not pictured: thousands of bugs.

And in the morning, the sunrise...

Astral Traveling in Varkala

We didn't see any aliens, but the view at sunset was pretty good anyway. I'm not sure how many people actually find spiritual transcendence at Varkala - it's a bit too much of a backpackers' ghetto, I'd think - but good waves and fresh seafood are enough for me.

Above two photos by Rachel

Greetings from Kumily

Unfortunately our ability to access the internet hasn't kept pace with our travels lately. We're now at an internet cafe in Kumily, a small town in the Western Ghat mountains of Kerala, near the Periyar wildlife preserve. And I forgot the USB cable, so no more photos today.

We do have a backlog of pics to post, though given the slow pace of Flickr uploads it could take weeks to get through everything. We'll do what we can later this week though.

As a quick summary: after Palolem, we took the train south, staying one night in Mangalore, a city whose charms, if any, escaped us. From there it was an overnight journey all the way down to Varkala, as Rachel describes below, for swimming in the swirling surf and seafood on the cliffs. From Varkala we went back north to Alleppey, the hub of the backwaters houseboat scene, and we dutifully rented a houseboat for a night and took roughly six thousand photos, the best two or three of which we'll post here at some point. After Alleppey was Fort Cochin, a Portuguese/Dutch colonial town in the former indepedent kingdom/princely state of Kochi. On the 3rd we went by bus up to Munnar, once a hill station in the "High Range of Travancore" (the same Western Ghats where we are now), which is now surrounded by atmospheric tea plantations; yesterday we had a gorgeous, winding bus ride through the mountains to Kumily, from where we plan to do some trips into the wildlife sanctuary. Periyar has a small tiger population, as well as wild elephants and all kinds of birds and monkeys (monkeys, incidentally, are a bit scary in person).

That's all much more interesting with photos, I know, so we'll update when we can with pictures and details on the trip so far.