NOVEMBER 6 FROM COCHIN TO KUMARAKOM

We had a relaxing morning since we weren't going to be picked up until 10:30.  The service in the cafe yesterday morning was awful, but Charlie figured out this morning what the issue was.  People have the day off on election day.  There were only 2 waiters in the cafe yesterday, and it was full of tourists.  Today, a lot of the tourists left, and we had 3 waiters.

When the driver came, we asked his name.  It's Rmanimaran or Rmani Maran (not clear).  The R is for fun, he doesn't seem to pronounce it.  We had lots of time since it is only a 2 hour ride to Kumarakom.  We stopped at a couple of gift shops.  One had lovely things, but not for me.  One was really expensive for basic stuff.  On the road we passed by what turned out to be an Indian DMV.  People were driving in a circle.  The vehicles were motor scooters, tuk tuks, and cars.  It takes about an hour.  A man stands and watches the test takers go in the circle and then they either pass or fail. If they fail, they can try again in a week.  All test takers have to be 18 or older.  We saw 2 fails, then the official chased us away.

The driving official checking out test takers

This little girl ultimately failed, she didn't signal a turn

Rice harvesting along the way to Kumarkom

The rest of the drive was same-ish.  We eventually got to the Kumarakom Lake Resort.  We are back to luxurious digs.  Just outside our room is an enclosed area with toilet, shower, sink, and hot tub.  No one can see into our little outdoor facility.  It sounds a bit rough, but is far from it.

The boat owned by the resort

View of the lake

Charlie and I at lunch

Nifty square sailed boat

One of the house boats

We had lunch here.  One of the activities was pottery.  I tried it on the hand wheel.  I won't keep my couple of pieces.  Just for fun.

Charlie in our room just after we managed to get the computer started

Our outdoor pool/bathroom

The vase in the middle is mine

The wheel I used

At 4 we had tea in the garden.  At 5:30 we took a boat ride on the lake.  So far lots of fun!

Our boat ride had a musical accompaniment

All the photos above were scenes along the shoreline

Sunset

NOVEMBER 5 - COCONUT CULTURAL VILLAGE, TWO BOAT RIDES, AND A WONDERFUL DINNER

Before we ate breakfast, we decided to walk to the Chinese fishermen's nets near the hotel.  We had a chance to get up close and personal with the fishermen and their nets.  The only sad bit was they didn't catch much with our help.  We also walked and found a nearby ATM.  The world is odd.  Everyone has a cell phone and ATMs are found on dusty streets in back alleys of small towns on all sides of the world.  We ate breakfast in the cafe at the hotel.

Chinese nets first thing in the morning

Charlie helps

More helping

A little puffer was the most interesting fish we caught

Our walk to the ATM.  The man in the white coloured Kerala sarong

Around 10 our driver took us out to a cultural village.  On the drive we passed by several booths with people sitting at tables in them.  It turns out to be election day and the booths were set up in order for people to vote.  Each slate of candidates for the different parties had their own booth. It was raining, but worth the slog to get my photos.

Photos through a rain streaked window don't work well

Men at a table helping voters

The communist party booth

I really hadn't been looking forward to the cultural village.  It seemed like it would be Main Street Disneyland, but actually it was fascinating.  The subtitle for the village should have been "how many different things can you make out of coconuts?"   There was a woman making brooms from the spine of the coconut fronds.  Another woman was scraping out the meat from the coconut squeezing it and making coconut milk.  That turned out to be not only the juice in the middle, but a mash of scraped coconut as well.  Another demonstration was that of women making coconut rope.  The hull of the coconuts were thrown into water for a time, then beaten with a stick when they dried out a bit.  A fibrous material eventually is formed from the shell, and it's that fibrous material that turns into the rope.  Another demonstration was a man who wove coconut frond spine bits into baskets.

There were several demonstrations that were actually not about coconuts.  A woman had a huge mountain of small clam shells.  She steamed the shells, and sold the meat at a local market.  The shells themselves she sold to cement manufacturers.  They had a potter - my favourite exhibition.  They also had a fisherman who tossed a net, and held up a few fish he had caught, as well as a particularly pretty coloured crab.

A lady trimming coconut fronds backs to make brooms

A basket full of steamed clams

A stick turned wheel for pottery

He had to throw quickly since the wheel would slow up quickly.  Back breaking pottery

The lady in the photo is scraping coconut meat

Coconut scrapings and water forming coconut milk

This lady is bashing a coconut shell that had been soaked

The fiber that forms once the shell was beaten

The photo is the fiber being spun into rope

Coconut fronds forming baskets

Leaves that are rolled around tobacco to make homemade cigarettes

Fisherman and his big green crab

Throwing a net

Coconut frond leaves woven into roof covers

Across the street, after the demonstrations, we were given huge coconuts with a straw to drink the juice inside and watched a man climb a coconut tree.  It was raining, and he wasn't all that enthused about scooting up slippery coconut trees.  However, he did manage to find the driest of the lot.  It was raining harder and our next tour segment was to take a boat ride around the island. Hmmm.  Boating with an umbrella.  I wouldn't recommend it as fun.

The driest tree of the lot and the coconut climber in it

On the way back the driver asked if we'd like to go boating again.  He drove around and about near a bridge.  I've been wondering how any of these drivers can find anything around here.  Between the traffic, narrow streets and convoluted layout, I'd be hopelessly lost.  We paid extra for a one hour ride through the mangroves and the weird water plants, but it was a wonderful hour.  We saw all kinds of great birds, and the water plants in the narrow inlets we went into really were floating gardens.

The Kerala sarongs from the front

A cormorant seen from the boat

Bright fisherman on the bank

Lovely gardens formed by floating sea weeds

The boatman called this bird the "Australian" Bird.  Some variety of crane

Better view of the crane

Close up of the sea weeds

We found a small flock of these great birds

He wouldn't sit still for a photo - the best I could do

This is an Indian kingfisher. VERY difficult to take their photos. At the sound of our boat, they dove into the weeds

Sea Eagle

Back to the hotel for a brief snack and a rest.

Around 5:30 the driver picked us up.  We first stopped by the local fishing area.  In the evening the fishermen brought their catch back to the shore to sell.  Enormous squids, and something that looked like a herring.

We then were driven to the home of Mrs. Nimmy Paul.  She is a chef who taught cooking in Kerola, but also travels to Napa to attend a culinary institute.  The idea was she'd show us how to cook, and we'd get to eat the results.  I've tried cooking Indian food before, but I honestly never saw anyone really do it properly.  I learned a lot.  Her dishes were wonderful, and for my family who reads this, get ready, I'll make some of the dishes for you.  She and her husband were delightful.  All in all, we had a wonderful evening.

Back to the hotel.  

ON TO KARALA AND A NOV 4 TOUR OF THE CITY AND A DANCE

We got up early and got a box breakfast.  We decided to eat breakfast on the porch outside of the jade room.  No one was around and it was lovely.

We got to the private airport, then took our Spice Jet to Karala.  We got there in plenty of time, with the road conditions you never know how long a drive will take.  Fortunately, we got a chance to play which gate are we actually going to leave from which took up a little extra time.  The gate was changed three times.  The flight itself was very easy, only an hour, which was very fortunate since we appeared to be on Screaming Baby Airlines.

From the air Karala is very green with huge rivers.  It means, we found out, land of coconut trees.  We drove a bit, and the pick up man asked us if we wanted to take a ferry or take the roads.  He gave us a warning that the roads were very crowded.  We didn't need much coaxing - off to the ferry.  Kochi (or Cochin) is on several islands.  The new area (where the airport is located), the harbor area (with docks and equipment provided by Dubai), and Mattancherry where Fort Cochin is located.  That's the old part of the city and the tourist area.  Our hotel, the Burton Boathouse sits along the waterway that the ferry crossed, and we have a lovely view of the water from our room.

Once we got settled, we went downstairs and had a bite to eat.  We managed to find something small, and the prices were much cheaper than we've seen.

At 2:30 we met up with Susan who took us to see the main sights.  First stop were the Chinese fishing nets.  The fishermen who use these things dip them into the water at least a 100 times a day.  Our next stop was the St Frances church.  The locals here speak another Indian language, (we've bumped into Tamil, in Chennai, Tallagu in Hyderabad, and now Malayalam.  Although the writing looks similar for all three, the later has the most circular letters.  The first European to come to the area was Vasco de Gama, the Portuguese explorer.  The church was his.  He was buried here and several centuries later, his family took his remains back to Portugal.  Then the Dutch conquered the Portuguese, then the English conquered them.  All these influences in such a small area.  The result is that Cochin is about 20% Christian - most of the rest of the Indian states are only about 2% Christian.  There were the old fashioned types of ceiling fans in there called pangas, originally operated by pangawallas.  Another interesting piece is that we had to take off our shoes.

The Chinese fishing nets

Some of the catch

Susan, our guide, and more fish

The pangas hanging in St Francis church

The white house is Dutch style, the red house was originally owned by one of the Jews from the Cochin temple

A sugar cane juice machine in operation

Our next stop was a 600 year old Jewish synagog.  The Jewish population of Cochin built the temple, but in recent times, most emigrated to Israel.  At present only 6 Jews remain.  One in her 40s and the rest far older.  The temple is functional, albeit, there aren't enough people for an official service, certainly no rabbi, so they just run the services themselves.

The next stop was the palace of the Raja of Mantacherry.  The palace was of Dutch origin, and the most interesting things in there were the Dolis (palanquins for the ladies which were covered) and  the kings palanquins.

Outside the palace

We visited a spice shop (Malabar is the name of the region especially concerning spices).  We then went to another Kashmiri shop, and had the wonderful saffron Kashmiri tea.  This time we bought the tea.  We also went to a woman's weaving cooperative.  Not much there.  The best thing was the walk around the old town

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View from the hotel cafe.  The red boat is the ferry that we took to get here

After a brief rest back at the hotel, we met our driver and went to an Indian Dance demo.  Interesting.

Dancer putting on make up before the show

Dancer wearing the typical white Cochin clothing

The Kerala women traditionally keep their hair in a bun to the side.  The character in the dance performance, clearly a man, did too.  He was creepy, but then I don't like clowns

Dancers nearing final scene of the dance

Back to the hotel and rest.   We're a bit disappointed in the hotel, but really, we've been treated like kings and queens for several days, so it's hard to come down to reality, even lovely reality.