The trip to Cochin was a quite short, the bus landed us at the gate of Ernakalum, but it was not our final destination, we were going to Fort Cohcin. Fort Cochin it’s a place which was colonised by Dutch and Portuguese with a really strong Jewish influence.
After we arrived in Fort Cochin we found a nice place to stay with a nice room and a clean bathroom YOUHOU!! \o/ \o/. We left our rucksack at the hotel and went to visit a bit of the town. The seaside was not really far and we could see fishermen were pulling up chinese fishing nets with plenty of tourists helping. Near these chinese nets there were some little shops with the catch of the day. We went a bit further in a calmer place near the sea and sat on rock on the beach but the smell of the rubbish on the beach make us move quickly. On the way of the restaurant we found a local bar to have drinks before the diner, they had some Kingfisher beer and some nice brawn rhum.
The next morning we had a medley fruits for breakfast and we designated the day as a chill out day.
The day after we went to a place called jew town, it’s the Jewish part of Fort Cochin. In this area there are many antique shops which contained amazing artefacts, from huge brass cows to entire carved wooden walls. It was fun and interesting to wander through these dust filled warehouses. Jew town was also an interesting mix of Indian and jewish culture, with many little coloured buildings and also a synagogue. We spent a relaxing hour over lunch being the only customers in a breezy and beautifully furnished colonial style restaurant. Later that day we returned to the hotel to pack up all our new purchases ready to send back home.
The next day we went to the Indian part of Cochin, which is called Ernakulam. We went to do a bit of shopping and to see a bit more than just the touristy part of Fort Cochin. We found a huge market full of fruit shops, vegetable shops, meats, sweets and plenty of other thins that we had no idea what they were. We also found a shop called Allapat, a jewellery shop, and decided to see what a really posh jewellery shop is like. Most jewellery shops in India sell almost only gold or diamonds. All four walls were adorned with copious amounts of gold, all different kinds of fine and intricate gold necklaces, gold bracelets, and gold earrings. It was a paradise for the Indian woman.
After we got back Marc went on skype whilst Jacquie went to pick up another salwa kameez at the tailors in the Indian part part of town. It was a substantial walk away from the tourist area Jacquie was wearing some western clothes on the way there several men said hello (which is unusual when Marc is there), she passed a street corner where a old guys was selling fruits he said something like “malalalblablayalamamalyallalannayam” with a frown on his face. When she arrived at the tailors the lady was really excited to show Jacquie her creation and the daughter came to see the western girl trying on the salwa kameez. It was really nice it was fitting really well and the tailor made a lot of effort, all for the price of £1.20. On the way out the shop wearing the salwa kameez the next door neighbour said:”NICE DRESS!!”. Walking back she passed the old man again and this time he say something like “malalalblablayalamamalyallalannayam” with a smile on his face and Jacquie was laughing. Going out for a drink before the diner, Marc wears one of the shopping of the day a lungi a popular traditional south-indian long-short skirt for man, it look like a 2 metres tea towel rapt around the hip.
We decided to chill out the last day.
The next destination was Ooty a little town in the mountay of Tamil Nadou.
This several days in Fort Cochin were really nice because we needed to relax and stay more than 2 days in the same place. We enjoy the Colonial architecture and peacefulness of this town, no tuc-tuc blowing the horn each second but always full of people trying to sell you something.
