All the travel blogs made it quite clear that one weekend is too short to see Kerala, the state of India known for its beaches, backwaters, mountains, and wildlife. Still, I really wanted to visit the tea plantations in Munnar (did you know that 70% of the tea produced in India is consumed in India itself, and the commercial production of tea in India began as an attempt by the British to break the Chinese monopoly on tea??). I wasted 4 hours trying to plan a 2-day itinerary, and am glad we didn’t follow through with it — that would’ve been a nightmare of a schedule.
Instead, we went to Kochi (Cochin), the major port city of Kerala that was occupied by the Portuguese in 1503.
Ate a masala dosa in the airport and watched them make it — they spread a batter mix in a thin layer onto a pan, plop the potato masala filling on top and spread it around a bit, then fold the elongated piece in half and scoop it out.
Having reached the halfway point in the internship program, we had a little time to reflect. There were things that bothered me about the culture here – like how people cut the line and don’t always respect personal space. I missed some aspects of autonomy – like being able to decide when to go to work, what to eat, and do my own laundry, etc. But for the most part, I’ve enjoyed being in India — I don’t mind not having to cook, I’m not tired of the food here, and I like the social aspect — I’ve enjoyed hanging out with the interns and having chai after dinner, and visiting a new part of India every weekend.
Also known as God’s Own Country, Kerala (KER-uh-la) means “land of coconuts.” It is a state of 34 million, known for its religious harmony (among Muslims, Hindus, and Christians). It achieved 100% literacy in 1991 and is the first Indian state to achieve 100% primary education. It has a higher life expectancy (70’s-80’s vs. 60’s in India overall), partly attributed to Catholic missionaries building schools and private hospitals. People still read the newspaper with their tea or coffee in the morning, and unlike in many parts of the world, the print media is still going strong here, with 17 daily newspapers. They are quite anxious about Brexit since there are thousands of Keralans there (5 million currently live abroad) – migration is huge. Environment is also huge – they were planning to tear down a white high-rise building because it was too close to the waterfront. There is a large emphasis on nature and no deforestation. This is the place for me! I thought to myself.
In the morning we did a Silent Backwater Village tour on the backwaters of Kochi, on the Muvattupuzha River.
On the way to the backwaters we stopped at a market for breakfast: I learned there are 7 varieties of banana. I had a plantain which was apparently the best variety – indeed it was so tangy and delicious! We had another small one that was green but ripe, and apparently is a treatment for diabetes.The backwaters contain fresh water 6 months of the year with the monsoon, and seawater the other 6 months. It was very sunny and warm, and pretty humid – we used umbrellas to block the sun.Our guide has been doing this for 24 years. He seems to have a lot of money – he owns 10 acres of land here and conducts up to 2 tours a day (and even 3 during the busy wintertime), and makes money through Google Maps. He claims to have done tours for famous people including the founder of Skype and an American writer.While another guy steered with a long wooden pole, our guide told us about the variety of plants as we passed by them. We saw a mango looking fruit that has a poisonous seed – if you eat it with sugar you’ll survive a max of 3 hours; without sugar you can survive 17-19 hours before you die! They found this out as people used it to commit suicide. But it also has a medicinal component: the seeds contain taxol and have been used for chemotherapy treatment! The noni fruit has 17 amino acids and 120 medicinal components—but only for one variety, which only crows can identify. So people chase down the crows (which can live over 100 years!) to find this one variety.We glided along canals, both wide and narrow ones, lined with palm trees. We passed by water lilies, or lotus flowers, and small canals that used to be fish farms. It was so peaceful — just the occasional sounds of trees ruffling, plant leaves brushing past us, and birds chirping.At one point we got off and walked around. The land was rice fields until the 1980s, before being converted into coconut farms. Coconut trees can live 90-95 years – a healthy tree can produce 100 coconuts every 2 months! Apparently there are also seals here, but they only come out at night and are afraid of the crunch sound of palm fronds.The guide showed us a baby coconut, saying it was the best remedy for headache (raw ginger too). You rub it on a piece of wood and then rub the brown paste on your forehead. It didn’t work though, according to one of the interns.We observed laborers scoop out mud from a large canoe and plop it onto the riverbank. The mud from the river is good for your skin, and is used as fertilizer. Every year they replace the mud (60% of it washes away after the monsoon). It is anything but easy – they have to dive into the water, fill up a large boat with the mud (each boat can hold 4 tons), then scoop it out one by one onto the banana plants and coconut trees. According to the guide, the financial director of BMW did this work for 13 minutes when he did this same canoe tour!Most irrigation and electricity comes from dams in the mountains in east Kerala. The government owns the canals, but the land is only used for agricultural purposes.Punting is much harder than it looks – by the time your stick touches the bottom of the river the boat has already gone by and you have to start overMe happy to be on a canoe and not a packed houseboatFishing nets — I got excited by the Plot for Sale sign (but was dismayed to find the land here is really expensive)As part of the tour, we had lunch on a small island that had only 9 families living on it. The village was on an island called Pututar, or “flower garden.” The people there were super hospitable and friendly.There’s a reason this is the land of the coconut: liquor is made from the flower buds, furniture from its trunk, curry from coconut oil, and thatch roofs from its leaves. No part of the coconut is wasted. One family showed us how to make rope out of coconut fibers. They soak coconut husks for 6 months to soften them, then take out the fibers one by one and make rope with a spinning wheel, which twists the fibers into rope. The rope then goes into making rugs and carpets.One husk can make 12-14m of rope!We were served lunch on a banana leaf: Putu – steamed rice flour with coconut – and a veg curry steamed in fresh coconut milk (only 10% water). We mashed up the curry with the rice and ate it with our hands. I ate so much rice and it was so good – I finished the three servings only because it’s impolite not to. For dessert we ate the same coconut rice, but mashed a sweet plantain into it. We complemented our meal with a sweet and flavorful tea.Sleeping cat. According to the guide they can eat snakes – but unfortunately he didn’t have a video to show as proof.Goat!Unfortunately we didn’t have access to the Kerala coconuts (which apparently you can tell by the outside), but afterward we drank coconut water out of a coconut. It was tangy and not too sweet. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the meat part though.We couldn’t climb all the way up due to liability issues. Apparently rats climb the trees, make holes in the coconuts, and live in them until they fall!
I would highly recommend doing a private tour on a canoe — it was nice and quiet, and we had a 360º view of our surroundings, which we would not have had on a loud, crowded houseboat. We sat there and were in awe of our paradise-like surroundings. This was definitely a highlight of the Kochi trip!
In the afternoon we hung out in the Kashi Art Café, a modern looking café with American music and plants and wooden furniture.
Street outsideKashi Art CafeSipped a masala chai while reading Life of Pi.
A few of us went to explore Princess Street, and we walked into a store which happened to be the oldest store in Kerala. The storekeepers here are a lot less intrusive and aggressive and more friendly and polite. For the first two shops, the storekeeper didn’t even acknowledge us, and just continued minding his own business. The second one we struck up a conversation with; he said he knew Bangalore back in the day when there were no cars in the road—now it’s so crowded here that in 5 years there’s going to be no more water. Here in Kerala, it’s peak monsoon season and we’ve had barely any rain, he said.
In the evening we saw a Kathakali dance performance.
We got there at 5pm to watch the actors put on makeup; the performance started at 6. We watched a makeup artist carefully put face paint on the actors (each paint is made by rubbing a stone).He drew flower patterns like the one on the left with the chalk powder and used a stencil to print the pattern on the right.The play was called Baka Vadham, The Killing of Baka. It’s about a Pandava Prince, Bhima, who kills Baka, a forest-dwelling demon. It was an interesting dance performance with drums, singing, and loud cymbals. The performance had no spoken words – it was all acted out with gestures, and it was hard to follow because I couldn’t keep track of all the gestures. But it was quite intriguing to watch!
Dinner at Seagull Bar – we got the perfect table right by the water even though it had a “Reserved” sign on it. (We’ve found that “Reserved” or “Promised” don’t carry so much weight here.) With a nice breeze, I enjoyed Kerala rice with silver fish moilee, a spicy fish and coconut dish, with some lime juice and Kingfisher beer (I don’t know why I ordered an entire fish – I just knew I wanted fish). It didn’t rain all day – in fact it was quite sunny – but on the walk back to the hostel we got caught in a sudden down-pouring of rain. But we weren’t too far away, and by the time we finished getting ice cream the rain had let up a bit.
Early Sunday morning I walked 10 minutes to the ocean to observe the Chinese fishing nets in action (which are apparently a Portuguese technology, with just the name being Chinese).We watched the fisherman release the weights, sending the net into the water – simple yet effective.A fisherman told me that they started around 6 this morning (depending on the low tide). He told us the fishing has not been great since the 2004 tsunami. The best time for fishing is during monsoon season – they usually get 3-4kg of fish a day.I bent down to take a pic of this cute cat and startled it, cuz it looked for a moment like it was gonna pounce. That could’ve been the end of me. Thankfully it didn’t!Another cat by the ocean
I also attended a service at St. Francis CSI church. St. Francis is the oldest church in India, the first church that was built here in 1503. A little history: The original Kochi state (Kingdom of Kochi) was formed AD 1102 and taken over by the Portuguese in 1503. St. Francis Xavier started the Christian mission in 1530. The Dutch overthrew Portuguese rule in 1663 (when all the churches and convents except St. Francis Church were demolished). Kochi was passed to Britain with the 1814 Anglo Dutch treaty, and joined India in 1947.
The church was not super elaborate, but it was simple and traditional, and I appreciated that. I found the sound of the organ and the voices of the men and women singing in unison quite comforting. The service consisted of a hymn, mixed with Bible readings and prayer and things we would all recite together. Then the sermon, breaking of the bread and communion, announcements (including people’s birthdays), and more reading and singing. There was more standing and sitting, singing and reciting than I was used to, but I liked it. The sermon was also shorter, and the minister didn’t make any jokes or tell any stories to illustrate his point — the atmosphere was very serious. He just told us his 3 main points and that was it. His message was that it is very difficult to be a faithful Christian, but that is our great challenge in life. We need to realize what our false idols are. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, though I was a little struck when he said we are called sheep because sheep are stupid — that was the first time I heard that said straight out loud. I also realized that the “thanks be to God” we usually say in Protestant services after the pastor reads a Bible passage and the “what we believe” statement come from the Catholic book! We just omit most of the Catholic readings. It felt really long towards the end, but overall I found my first Catholic service refreshing.This is also where Vasco da Gama was buried!
The Mattancherry Palace or Dutch Palace (the Dutch repaired it) – today a museum – is one of the oldest Portuguese buildings built in 1555AD and presented to the ruler, Veera Kerala Varma, as a seat of the royal house.
View from the window. The Royal Families followed a matrilineal system of inheritance: they gave women the right to property. In fact, women were some of the first to complete school and go to college! They were highly educated as they had to deal with family property matters and sometimes matters of state.Interesting fact: Women of the royal family only started covering their upper bodies in the late 18th-early 19th c. — after European influence. How we dress is all in the culture!Cherai Beach — not too different from Cali, except the palm trees had coconuts!I took a walk along the shore – getting my pants wet from the waves was enough water for me!We came to this beach because it was supposedly less crowded and more secluded…It was nice and cool here for India summer standards, and it smelled clean and fresh. Sat on some moss covered rocks for a while, then went back and read Life of Pi — the part where the hyena eats a zebra inside out alive and then beheads an orangutan. In contrast, the ocean around me was quite calm and pleasant.Prawns biryani (like fried rice) at Lilliput, a multi-cuisine seafood restaurant
Kochi Airport is the cleanest, quietest airport I’ve ever seen. I felt like I was at a resort — the floors were spotless white, the design modern and clean, the area so large for the few number of people there that it seemed almost empty. It is also the first airport to be completely powered by solar! We saw rows of solar panels outside and in the parking lot.
When you pay for a full meal in the airport and then find that they serve a complimentary meal on the flight! I had medu vada (fried lentils donut shaped snack) with veg curry and pazham pori, a fried banana, beforehand, only to be served hot paratha and a veg rice dish with curd (yogurt) and tea on the plane.
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