Kerala

Friday 15^th January

Up at 5.10 to prepare for departure. The leg still isn’t good, and I will confess to a moment of gloom, wondering how I’m going to cope with today, and how long this pain is going to last. Just after 6am the taxi arrives, and we begin the trip to Goa’s airport at Dabolim. It’s still dark, and most of the highways are unlit, but that of course does not stop a multitude of people, dogs, and cows from using them, and thus the driver is constantly having to avoid oncoming vehicular, pedestrian, canine, and bovine traffic. After an hour or so, we’re dropped at the international terminal. Since we’re only flying to Kerala, we walk down to the domestic terminal some two hundred yards away. Here, we’re told that all flights on the Kingfisher airline leave from the international terminal. Back we go. Check-in is routine, although when it comes time to go to the gate, the monitors say ‘gate 2’, while our boarding passes say ‘gate 1B’.  We enquire at the Kingfisher desk, and are told to ignore the monitors. Waiting at gate 1B, it suddenly occurs to me that the Kingfisher Air logo, is exactly the same as the Kingfisher Beer logo. How a company gets into breweries and aviation I can only speculate. We’re put on buses from the gate, and driven all of thirty yards to our twin-prop, Air Deccan plane. I’m not sure the bus was worth it, although amusingly, the one behind ours drives in a little circle before pulling up, almost as if the driver is trying to make the journey seem a bit longer, and less like a total waste of petrol.

The first leg, to Bangalore, takes an hour or so, and is only notable for the extreme foulness of the sandwich we’re served mid-flight. We are forced to go through security again on the ground, and Odie is stopped for having not one, but two lighters in her bag; clearly Goa didn’t spot them. Back out on the tarmac, we’re amused to learn that we are re-boarding exactly the same plane we came here in, so I’m not entirely sure why we had to get off it in the first place. Another unremarkable flight follows, but at least the sandwich is an improvement, in that it’s edible.

Kochi, Kerala, is hot and sunny, but in the parts of it we see from the taxi en route to the KRSTC bus stand in Ernakulam, is also loud, noisy, and almost entirely free of soul. It matters little however, since events in the firmament are occupying most of our attention. We learned from the Goa Times this morning that today will see the century’s longest annular solar eclipse. An annular eclipse, for anyone who isn’t Patrick Moore, is one in which the moon is unusually far away, and thus doesn’t cover the sun completely, instead leaving a ring around itself as it nestles in the circle of the sun. During the hour-long taxi ride, we are all craning out of the windows trying to catch a glimpse of it through multiple sunglasses, with some, but not spectacular success.

The bus to Alappuzha, from where we hope to organize a houseboat, looks like it’s seen better days, but at least there’s enough space for us all to get seats together at the back, and stow our gear nearby. Things are going swimmingly until, a few minutes into the journey, it becomes plainly apparent why no-one else was sitting on the back seats. Every time the bus goes over a speed bump (of which there are many) or a pothole, the four of us are launched about five inches into the air, with an inevitably uncomfortable crash landing. For all that though, I enjoy the two hour journey. Jung-Ok doesn’t, I later learn, as she spends much of it in need of the toilet.

Alappuzha bus station is typical of many, in that it’s hot, noisy, grimy, crowded, and full of diesel fumes. We’re getting our bearings when four nearby guys start trying to tempt us with the delights of the Hotel Venice, which they either own, or are simply touts for. It looks ok, but we’ve a few options we’d like to try first. We tell them this and they launch immediately into the old, “Oh, everything in Lonely Planet will be full, it’s very busy now” chestnut, which I greet with a good-humoured but sarcastic response. They laugh back, clearly acknowledging that their bullshit has been rumbled.

Having three guidebooks, my Lonely Planet, Andy’s Rough Guide, and Jung-Ok’s World 100, a Korean publication, is very useful. For one thing it means that we can usually get three reviews of everything, which is great because often something that one guide slates, the other two rave about, or vice-versa. For another, it means we can discover things we’d not know about otherwise. The KTC Guesthouse is a perfect example. Only the World 100 mentions it at all, and since it gets a decent review, and is just around the corner from the bus station, we decide to give it a try. It’s tucked away down a quiet alley, and has a nice little garden out front. We’re welcomed in immediately by the manager, Martin. He offers us bamboo rooms on the top floor, and it’s at this point, we notice that sure enough, the bottom floor of the building is made of stone, while the upper two floors seem to be constructed entirely of bamboo. The rooms in fact are lovely, with the best showers so far in India, and cost only Rs400, which is a bargain. Martin also informs us that they have their own houseboat operation. It seems like a good deal; nice boats, good food, and a reasonable price – Rs8000 for twenty-four hours, which works out at about 80USD per person. We knew in advance that the houseboat would be one of the most expensive things we’d do here, so were prepared for that kind of figure. Still, we’ll try a few other places in town to see how they compare before we commit to anything.

With food and research in mind we hit the streets.  I love Alappuzha immediately – it’s exactly what I’d imagined an Indian town to be. I suppose it’s like Mumbai but on a much smaller scale, with no grand wide boulevards or imposing architecture, but the same ancient, exhaust-belching buses and trucks, horn-honking auto-rickshaws, rickety bicycles, swarms of people, and strolling cows. It buzzes with energy and activity, and when this is complemented by the gently-setting sun and the wafts of incense and spices, it all combines to simply shout, “India!”  Despite feeling small and somewhat out-of-the-way, probably due to its canals and proximity to the Keralan backwaters, Alappuzha actually has a population of just over two million. It was first developed in the 18^th century as a port, by an official named Raja Kesavadas, and was a centre for the export of spices and timber. It was also known as the Venice of the East, although there are apparently sixteen other towns and cities in Asia that can claim the same thing. Now it’s the centre of the houseboat industry, and acts as a hub for dispersing tourists all over the backwaters, a network of canals, lakes, lagoons, and rivers that stretches over a large part of Kerala state.

We take dinner at a rather dingy and basic eatery, which wins no awards either for food or for service, and with my leg causing issues again, Andy and Odie go off in search of the government liquor store (Kerala is a largely ‘dry’ state), while we try to speak to another houseboat operation. We’re asked, rather oddly an uninspiringly, to wait in a grocery store for the guy who deals with the houseboats. We’re told he’ll be here in five minutes, but in the end it’s more like twenty, a period conveniently long enough for me to get comprehensively devoured by mosquitoes. Having finally arrived, he is entirely unhelpful, and offers a price of Rs10, 000. With competition like that, I think we’ll be using the guesthouse.

Back in the bamboo lounging area, we all agree to this, and also decide to do forty-eight hours on the boat rather than twenty-four, since this will allow us to go a lot further out and escape the more crowded canals. Martin arranges everything, and tells us that we can inspect the boat early in the morning, after which if we don’t like it we can feel free to cancel. With this sorted, it’s back to the lounge for a few Sandpipers (a rather industrial beer) and some Romanov vodka. The tropical evening progresses in the company of large numbers of geckos, and later, Martin comes to join us. From him we learn that the main language of Kerala is Malayalam, which interestingly, is apparently the only name of a language in the world that is a palindrome. He also teaches me how to say, “What’s your name?” in Hindi (“Apgenamgahae?” For anyone who’s interested).

Saturday 16^th January

Awake to find that the pain in my right leg has gone…to my left leg. I let the other three go and check out the houseboat while I wait behind. About an hour later they return saying that we should pay Rs8250 because they’ll give us a much nicer boat if we do, but basically it’s all systems go. A mediocre breakfast is taken round the corner from the guesthouse, but does as a bonus, include the world’s most peculiarly tasting butter. Afterwards we go on the hunt for mixers.  The guesthouse has already told us that they’ll take us to the boat via the government liquor store, but there are no soft drinks there, so we need to find them elsewhere.  A small street kiosk nearby seems to offer what we need.  We look at a bottle of Pepsi, but it appears suspiciously old. Indeed, when I examine the label, it has a best before stamp of October ’05! We buy a bottle of Sprite that’s only 3 months out of date, and secure cola elsewhere. With bills at the guesthouse settled, and rooms reserved for our return, we pile into a rickshaw and make for the liquor store, a bizarre little hole-in-the-wall facility down a side alley. It’s always busy, since these places are pretty much the only way locals can obtain alcohol. There’s an amusing edge of shiftiness about the government liquor store, the way it’s hidden away, and serves bottles of booze wrapped in plain brown paper to men who look like they’re hoping no-one they recognise sees them there. We buy twelve beers and two bottles of vodka, so they have to give us a cardboard box – brown paper really isn’t going to cut it. From here it’s on through some truly crazed morning traffic, to a quiet canal a kilometre or so outside town, where our houseboat, home for the next two days, awaits.

The boat is lovely; its rear two-thirds are bamboo, and shaped in the domed style of a traditional rice barge. At the prow end there’s an open-deck relaxation area with a dining table, lots of comfortable seating round the edge, cushions galore, and a coffee table. Another small deck space above is accessed by a ladder. The bedrooms too are very nice, with not only clean bathrooms, but also clean sheets.  We have a crew of two, Matthew the captain, and Rapindrah the chef. While we get settled in, they prepare for departure, and within about twenty minutes, we begin chugging gently away from the banks as our backwater experience gets underway. It’s just after this that I go to remove my contact lenses, only to discover that I’m only wearing one of them.  I definitely put them both in this morning, so how one can have removed itself is an utter mystery. Oh well, that’s the first sacrifice to the travelling pixies.

Palm trees are the overwhelming abundance on the backwaters, lining both sides of every channel, or canal, or whatever they should properly be called. Here on the outskirts of Alappuzha however, other houseboats are almost as numerous as the palms. Thankfully, being on a forty-eight hour trip we’ll be able to escape most of these and get a little further away, since the majority of boats are on smaller, twenty-four hour circuits. In fact it doesn’t take long for us to break away onto lesser-used channels, where our company comes in the form of egrets perched calmly on floating logs, cormorants striding gracefully across the nearby rice paddies, and local people going about their business in pirogues carrying anything from one to about twenty. All of this peace and tranquillity, combined with the lethargic amble of the boat itself, has the effect of lulling everyone into a wonderful calm. For the next forty-eight hours, all we have to do is nothing. We can sit and watch the backwaters slipping by, to the sound of exotic birds, swaying palms, and the occasional hint of village life from the banks, with no responsibility but to enjoy ourselves, and at no greater pace or effort than the boat itself.

We’ve been enjoying this happy lethargy, with orange juice and fresh fruit, for a couple of hours when lunch is served.  It’s a smorgasbord of Keralan specialities too numerous to mention, but all fantastic, and all washed down with cold Kingfishers. Afterwards, while it may not make for great reading, I cannot pretend that we do anything other than return to our state of relaxed inactivity between the palms, serenaded by the gentle putter of the engine, and by the birds, and by the breeze. As afternoon draws towards evening we’re served tea and coffee, and fried banana with cumin, before mooring near a small village, all but hidden from view beyond the palm and banana groves. It’s here that we will spend the night.

It would, I can’t help but feel, have been impossible for our crew to have found a more atmospheric place than the one in which they’ve chosen to moor this evening. The comings and goings of the nearby village as the day approaches its end offer us a glimpse into the life of this tranquil, sleepy part of the world. Not far from our boat, a few stone steps lead into the water, and here a number of villagers are washing clothes – rinsing, then beating them against a stone slab with a motion that, despite the utter contrast of atmosphere, takes me right back to Mumbai’s Dobi Ghat. While their mothers attend to laundry, children cool off in the still humid evening by jumping into the water and splashing around without an apparent care in the world.  About a hundred yards away on the opposite bank, from what I assume is another village, comes drifting towards us, over waters illuminated in pink and purple by the setting sun, gentle, melodic music, which I notice after a few bars is exactly the same tune I heard emanating from the Shiva box on the wall in that internet cafe in Panaji. And so we sit, enjoying a beer to the sounds of rural backwater life, and the view of a magnificent sunset over the palm trees, while the boat’s resident geckos begin to emerge, scuttling and darting across the ceiling, and in and out of the rafters. As news spreads of the presence of a boat full of foreigners, more and more villagers, particularly children, congregate. Very few of them speak any English, and it seems that all they want to do is have a good look at us. I get the impression they don’t see that many houseboats here.  We try talking to them, with varying degrees of success, but despite the language barrier, it’s abundantly clear that these are happy, carefree kids, quick to smile and laugh. After a while a woman from the village appears. She speaks pretty good English, and introduces herself and Jessie. Apparently she works as a nurse in Saudi Arabia, and is back home for a visit. Her three year old son, Jason, takes an immediate shine to Jung-Ok, and laughs every time she opens her mouth. He, and the other children all seem to relish the attention they get from us, and it’s over an hour before we lose our novelty value, and they begin to drift away. By this time, the sun has set (beautifully) and our dinner is ready. Once again the catering department has done us proud. I am, regrettably, unable to describe our menu in detail (a Keralan meal tends to include a large and varied assortment of things, not all of which are readily identifiable) but it definitely involves plantains, and okra, and it’s definitely delicious. What remains of the evening is spent with a few vodkas, some charming parlour entertainments such as ‘Twenty Questions’ and ‘The Rizla Game’, good conversation, and the endless backing track supplied by the frogs, the cicadas, and the many other creatures of the Keralan night. 

Just after 10pm the crew start milling, which is their subtle way of pointing out that our day area, is their sleeping area. We retire to the rooms.  Our mosquito net doesn’t stretch across the generously wide bed, so we hang it over the open window instead. We can’t use the fan, because it creates a deafening racket that would almost certainly prevent sleep of any kind or quality.

Sunday 17^th January

Yet more leg problems.  I’m getting really sick of this now.  Jung-Ok has me do some exercises before I emerge this morning, and they seem to help a bit. When I do venture on deck, I am immediately thrust into a conversation with a villager on the bank. This isn’t really what I need, partly because I am never at my best and most sociable just after I wake up, and partly because despite apparently being an English teacher, the guy has such a strong accent that it’s very hard to understand anything he says, and I feel a little like I’m back at work. Still, I try to put my friendly head on regardless, and pleasingly, I’m saved after a few minutes by the arrival of breakfast. A little later, stuffed with omelettes, toast, and coffee, we get underway once more, leaving last night’s charming little stopover behind. It’s sad to leave such a lovely, peaceful place, but we can at least be secure in the knowledge that another whole day of much the same lies ahead of us. 

An hour or so into the day’s cruising, we enter a much wider channel, flanked on one side by the largest expanse of rice field I’ve ever seen. It stretches as far as the eye can see. I know a little about rice farming, and I can say with confidence that if the whole thing is planted and harvested by hand, it’s an absolutely monumental feat of work. Other notable sights on the backwaters this morning include two canoes so desperately overloaded with people that the mere fact they are still afloat seems to defy physics, and a man fishing with a bow and arrow. There isn’t honestly much else to report, as our houseboat life is one of near-total inactivity, and there are only so many times I can mention palm trees and water birds. They may not make for great reading, but you’ll just have to trust me that, experienced in person, the backwaters are about the most chilled and relaxing place imaginable.

About thirteen kilometres outside Alappuzha, heading back in what I assume to be a very wide circle, we stop for lunch. It is by far the most exotic meal yet. Portions of rice, long beans with coconut, a kind of beetroot yoghurt, curry, popadoms, pickles, something involving tomatoes, and something else involving coconut and pineapple, are served on huge banana leaves. It all tastes amazing, but there is a hell of a lot of it to get through. Rapindrah has made enough to feed a small army, and keeps reappearing to ladle more of it out for us, in the apparent belief that we all have the capacity of water buffalo.  At one point Andy acquiesces and accepts “A little” more rice, only to be given a pile that would’ve been daunting if it had been presented at the start of a meal, but is truly insurmountable towards the end, when stomachs are already bursting at the seams. He makes a valiant effort, but the final score is rice one, Andy nil. A brief walk along the bank after lunch ends with me posing for a photo, in a rather camp manner, with a flower in my hair. Best not to ask.

Following another supremely idle afternoon in which the most noteworthy event is my discovery that it’s just possible to dangle one’s feet in the water if one sits astride the gangway, we moor near a village at around 4.30pm. Once again, children appear almost immediately. I’m not really in the mood for being stared at, so I retreat to the room. When they finally disperse I re-emerge to learn that Andy was told by the crew not to drink a beer while the kids were around. That seems a bit much, given the amount of money we’ve paid to enjoy these forty eight hours. Mooring in a stretch of deserted, peaceful channel would have seemed to make more sense in any case. I suspect, judging from the fact that the crew disappear for about two hours, that they had an ulterior motive for stopping here.  As the sun sets, one more child arrives, and he’s obviously very bright. He speaks English quite well, and is a mine of geographical trivia. As he stands there he comes out with endless little snippets such as, “London, Buckingham Palace Tower Bridge.” “Paris, Eiffel Tower.” and “Rome, Coliseum.” He strikes me as the kind that will go far.

Tonight’s dinner is the only unremarkable meal we’ve had on the boat so far. It’s not unpleasant, it’s just unremarkable. This evening, like the last, passes with a few drinks, a few games, and lots of chilling. At bedtime, Rapindrah decides to switch on a radio, and a cockerel decides that 11pm is the perfect time to start giving everything it’s got. At least I can request that the radio be turned down, the cockerel sadly not.

Monday 18^th January

Not a good night. Apart from the cockerel, and about seven of its colleagues keeping up an almost continuous sonic assault, all night, I also found myself in the bathroom at 4am, absolutely unable to move from leg pain. Jung-Ok had to help me back into bed. Lying there, I had a few moments of supreme misery. It’s painful, it’s frustrating, it’s lasted much longer, and been much worse than it ever has before, and I just don’t need this now. Not here, not now. I resolve to sleep on the floor back in Alappuzha tonight. Perhaps a hard surface will sort me out, as Jung-Ok has a theory that soft beds do me no good at all. I rise at about 7.20, do some exercise, and find things improved.

Our last meal on the Lake Queen is a rather mediocre breakfast of curried, hard boiled eggs with coconut noodles. Soon afterwards we’re back in the environs of the city, on canals crowded with other houseboats. The last two days have been great – an utter festival of inactivity and relaxation in gorgeous surroundings, but I am ready to get back to the noise and the bustle now, and for the adventure to continue.  When we’ve moored for the last time, we pile our gear into a rickshaw, say thank you and farewell to Matthew and Rapindrah, and are then whisked back to the appealing chaos of Alappuzha. It’s the hottest day so far, which is saying something. Back at KTC, Jung-Ok and I have to wait for about forty five minutes before we can get access to our room, since one of the staff is still asleep in it. Once we are all settled in, the four of us agree that Alappuzha’s surrounds seem to offer little in the way of diversion.  The LP doesn’t even have a ‘sights’ section, and the only real option, a palace on the outskirts of town, is closed on Mondays. It will therefore be a day of sundries, such as using the internet, doing laundry, and napping. Priority one is napping. Last night’s pain and cockerel extravaganza afforded me very little sleep, so I need to catch up. I discover that there’s a solid wooden board on the bed, so I stow the mattress against the wall and sleep on the comforting hardness instead.

We surface at about 1pm, and meet Andy and Odie for lunch at a ‘Sweet and Snack’ place nearby. After that Jung-Ok and I install ourselves in an internet cafe, where I upload a gloat-worthy selection of photos to Facebook. Coming out a little later, I am frankly ecstatic to note that both of my legs, for the first time since Goa, are absolutely fine; about bloody time. By means of celebration, we repair to the Government Liquor Store. As we’re queuing, a man comes away from the window with a bottle.  He looks at us proudly and says, “Ice cold beer!  Very good, very strong!”. By the time, some two minutes later, we’ve bought four bottles of Kingfisher, he’s drained it. Having very kindly helped us to get our bottles into our bag, he then rides off on a scooter, with a big smile on his face.

We’re dining in style this evening. Well, as much style as Alappuzha can muster at any rate. The Arcadia Regency Hotel apparently has a very good, and reasonably priced buffet, so that’s where we’re headed. When we find it, the place is of a rather higher class than we’d imagined, and comes complete with that utter sterility inherent in mid-range hotels. The restaurant, ‘Granary Wood’, is equally soulless, but does have a very enthusiastic waiter, which we initially put down to the fact that we’re the only people there for the first fifteen minutes. The buffet is extensive, including mutton, chicken, fish, two kinds of rice, three salads, raitas, popadoms, naans, and dishes of gobi, aloo, dhal, noodles, and paneer. There are also two desserts – fruit salad and ShalaTukra, a divine sponge-type thing in a sort of thin custard. The food, and the Kingfisher Strong, is excellent, but the waiter, whose initial enthusiasm quickly turns to zeal, becomes rather a pain in the arse. He appears literally every thirty seconds to fill glasses or remove plates, and develops an obsession with a bottle of mineral water we’ve ordered but not yet opened. He asks, “Can I take this?” We reply that we want it. Very soon afterwards he says, “If you don’t want this I can take it.” We assure him that we do, as before, want it. His next move is to silently glide up and just remove it to a nearby counter. We all look at each other, and Andy immediately gets up, strides over there, and brings it back. Another waiter then tries to take his plate and spoon, and when Andy says, “I haven’t finished.” the guy proceeds to remove them anyway, forcing Andy to request that he at least be allowed to keep the spoon. Finally, the original waiter presents us with the bill while Jung-Ok is still eating dessert. We don’t tip.

Back at the KTC (following a diversion down a number of dark, back alleys that Mr.Webb was convinced would link up with the one the guesthouse is on, but which didn’t at all, and in fact led us to the bus station, whereupon we had to clamber over a brick wall, much to the amusement of the assembled Indian youth) we repair to the ‘lounge’ for a few drinks. There’s high gecko action tonight, with about ten of them scuttling around the ceiling, hunting, bickering, or just, well, scuttling. One of them falls on the floor, and proceeds to climb my chair. Trying to do the right thing, I stand up, and lift the chair to the ceiling. Unfortunately, the little chap dithers for so long about disembarking, that I accidentally bash the chair into the ceiling fan.  The jolt sends the gecko freefalling onto my face, before thudding back onto the floor, and then scampering (possibly in shock) away into the bamboo wall. An appropriately ridiculous way to end the evening.

Tuesday 19^th January

A great night’s pain-free sleep on the wooden bed board. No need for painkillers this morning, although I am still a pharmacist’s dream. Before 8.30am I have consumed multivitamins, antihistamines (for two bizarre bumps that have appeared, one on my arm, and one on my forehead that makes it looks like I’ve walked into a door) and diarrhoea stoppers (for an occasionally urgent condition that started in the latter part of yesterday, and continues this morning).

Breakfast is as mediocre as we’ve come to expect at the cafe next door, but is unfortunately the only convenient option. I question the accuracy of the sign that hangs over their door and reads ‘Welcome to Tasty Heaven’. At the bus stand, we board a bus bound for Thoppumbury, where we can switch buses for one direct to Fort Kochi, thereby avoiding completely the unpleasantness that is Ernakulam.  Jung-Ok and I are once again on the back seat, but are this time thankfully spared the spine-jolting horrors of our last Keralan bus. Indeed the journey, in bright sunshine, is thoroughly enjoyable, particularly when we pass a rather incongruous elephant moving timber by the side of the road. I say incongruous, because the elephant in question, rather than being in sun-dappled woodland by a quiet country track, is in fact labouring at the edge of a six lane highway surrounded by apartment buildings. At Thoppumbury, it’s an instant and trouble-free connection, which Rs5 and twenty minutes later finds us in Fort Kochi. We aim for the Royal Grace Guesthouse a short distance from the bus stand.  It’s a large, sprawling, whitewashed colonial relic in a quiet street not far from the waterfront, and first impressions look favourable. Odie and Jung-Ok go upstairs to check the rooms. We seem to have fallen into a system where two of our number assess the accommodation, while two remain downstairs with the stuff, and since my wife and Mrs Webb are, shall we say, more discerning, or to put it a little more bluntly, pickier when it comes to room quality, at least one of them is always included. They report back that the Rs500 rooms with balcony are perfectly acceptable. Check-in is an amusing process. The old, white-haired, heavily-bearded, and just as heavily bespectacled gentleman who deals with us hands me a long list of do’s and don’ts. He brushes most of them off, but emphasises very heavily ‘No cooking in the rooms’, explaining that, “Korean people come and cook fish in rooms, very bad.” Jung-Ok shrinks in shame. He then, I can only assume unaware that he’s talking directly to one of them, launches into somewhat of a tirade against Koreans in general; his chief grievance being that they come to India and can’t speak any English at all, which he states pointedly is, “Very annoying!” We inform him that while Jung-Ok may be Korean, she can speak English, and will definitely not be cooking any fish in the room. 

Having dumped our stuff, freshened up, and checked out the view from the balcony (an eclectic mix of colonial charm and rubble), we head out. Fort Kochi reminds me of Stonetown in Zanzibar.  I think it’s the crumbling, whitewashed buildings, the vague, lingering smell of fish, and the laid-back coastal atmosphere. Historically, Fort Kochi, then a fishing village, was given to the Portuguese in the mid-16^th century, by the Rajah of Kochi, as a gesture of gratitude for their help in defeating the spectacularly-named Saamoothiri of Kozhikode. It remained under their control until the Dutch took it in 1683, and they in turn held it until 1795, when it passed into the hands of the British. Much of the architecture one sees today originated during these colonial periods. On reaching the waterfront, we come across the much-lauded Chinese Cantilever Fishing Nets, which stretch for about two hundred yards along the coast. These are huge, counterweighted contrivances that through a series of rocks attached to ropes of varying length, are used to lower and raise framed fishing nets into and out of the water. The theory goes that they were introduced by the Chinese mariner, diplomat, and explorer Zheng He, in the early 15^th century. In a neat piece of historical and geographical oddness, it has been theorised that Zheng He used, for the purposes of navigation on those early voyages, the Kangnido Map, which was produced in Korea in 1402.

Near the nets, we stop to take refreshment in the form of coconuts. They are hacked by machete in front of us to access the milk, and once we’ve drunk that, the vendor prises them open, and scoops out the flesh for us to eat. It has a consistency unlike anything I’ve ever eaten – part soft, part moist, and part chewy, and it tastes fairly bland at first, although the more one eats, the more obvious the coconut flavour becomes. In need of more sustenance, we stop at a row of open air cafes nearby. I order vegetable noodles and vegetable pakoras.  The latter seems to be a plateful of deep fried, very oily, vegetable scraps in batter. It’s certainly not the best pakora I’ve ever had, and may actually qualify as the worst.

From here, we engage rickshaws to Mattancherry Palace, another Portuguese construction, given to the aforementioned Rajah of Kochi in 1555. En route, our very chatty driver, Baboo, attempts to get us to visit an arts and crafts emporium. We say no. Having arrived at the palace, and while waiting for Andy and Odie, he explains that he’ll get fuel money for taking us there, even if we don’t buy anything, which to be honest, sounds quite reasonable, as it will only take five to ten minutes of our time. We agree to stop by there on the way back. The palace is, in all honesty, nothing special, and is barely worth the Rs5 it costs to get in. We shuffle through an assortment of rooms, mostly filled with photos and bits of Royal paraphernalia. There’s really no atmosphere or sense of history to speak of.

When we’re done, Baboo is waiting. He whisks us off, negotiating the traffic with impressive skill, and takes us to the emporium.  We spend about five minutes in there, and then emerge. Sure enough this makes him Rs100, so I have no complaints about that, no harm done. Heading back through the town, we pass a rickshaw full of school children. Full, in fact, is a poorly inadequate word to describe the spectacle. The average auto-rickshaw could uncomfortably accommodate four adults, but there must be somewhere between ten and fifteen children, rammed into every available inch of this one. I assume they’re on their way home from school. The consequences of a road traffic accident don’t bear thinking about.  I’m trying to arrange a place to watch Kallaripayattu, a local martial art, this evening, and Baboo dutifully takes us around the three places that apparently have performances, but for various reasons, it seems impossible to arrange. Eventually we are dropped off by the waterfront, where we spend some time searching the craft stalls for nice bead necklaces, to no avail.

Come the evening, we return to the open air cafes (minus Jung-Ok, who is sleeping at the hotel). Andy and I order beers, which are served, Kerala being officially ‘dry’, in mugs, with a decoy Sprite and bottle of mineral water. We use this last Southern India drink to prepare ourselves for the north, and more specifically Delhi. I’m not sure if the India we all expected, that of endless hassle, begging, and confusing chaos will manifest itself there, but we can be sure that the tropical vibe will end. Delhi was apparently 16 degrees yesterday, and 6 degrees at night. Still, I’m ready for it. It’s the next stage of the adventure, and I can’t wait, whatever it may bring. Who knows what new experiences await in the north?