Jewtown without Jews
Trip Start
Dec 05, 2004
1
22
25
Trip End
Jan 17, 2005
Cochin,
India
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Beautiful backwaters in Kerala
. Once we'd had enough of the friendly but insistent requests for us to come into every shop down Jew Street, we headed back to Fort Cochin. This part of Cochin is made up of narrow streets, low rise buildings from colonial Portuguese, Dutch and British rule, which makes this place feel very un-Indian. It's also eerily quiet, even the stray dogs are thin on the ground here. The bay is lined with the famous huge Chinese fishing nets which are lowered using a cantilevered mechanism periodically into the sea. Facing the Fort Cochin bay is palm tree covered Vypeen island and in the distance the more industrial Ernakulam.In the evening, we went to see the traditional ancient drama based dance of Kathakali, the traditional dance of Kerala. First we watched the lengthy make up procedure as the men put on very elaborate colourful exaggerated "faces" - no they weren't exactly putting on a drag show. This dance is a form of story-telling which can last 10 hours, using hand gestures, eye movements and strange facial expressions. It's very dramatic and accompanied by drumming, cymbals and vocals. After the show, I had my first taste of fish for a month as Kerala is known for its fish dishes - tuna fish tikka - yum! In the restaurant, we bumped into Kate and Saskia, two English women who we'd briefly met in Periyar - small world. There was also a slightly mad French woman who intruded on our meal when she learnt that I spoke fluent French and she told us all about her month spent with the Hugging Mother (an Indian guru, who has an Ashram further down the coast and spends 20 hours a day hugging people - I've met a few people now who've had hugs from her and they describe it as soul-cleansing and some of them are actually quite normal!)
The next day, we went on a three hour backwater cruise
Chinese Fishing Nets
. I had orignally planned to do a longer backwater cruise once Debbie had left for the UK, but as we'd arrived a few days earlier than planned in Kerala, due to the tsunami, it seemed right to fit that into her itinerary. The backwaters are a network of rivers, streams, lagoons, and canals that run the length of the coast from Kochi to Kollam (where a few hundred people were killed a few weeks ago by the tsunami - strangely this was the only spot affected on the west coast). An hour down the road from Kochi we boarded our dugout canoe and two men paddled us down the larger rivers. This tranquil view of Keralan village life was an idyllic experience. The mix of saltwater and fresh river and lagoons were lined as far as the eye could see with coconut palms, tilting towards the water. We spotted men bathing in the water, women washing clothes on rocks, men dredging sand from the river bed to make bricks, tethered cows, chidren playing and also some wildlife small turtles, kingfishers and other birds. We visited men havesting and preparing coconuts for coir making, which we also saw in action - like magic, women take sacks of coconut husk and spin it into rope. As we navigated the smaller tributaries overgrown with lush greenery, it reminded me of reading the award winning 'God of Small Things' by Arundharati Roy set in the Keralan backwaters - I'll have to re-read it. I'd mentioned to our guide that I'd quite like to find somewhere to stay in the backwaters itself as it was so peaceful and beautiful
Coconut industry in backwaters
. She suggested I come and stay with her and her family (which I considered for while, but Mr Walton later said this might be difficult for me as these families often live in one room and often talk about how they need money to live and this would create an expectation).Back in Cochin and another delicious meal in Kashi's Cafe, we set off back to Jew Town to visit the unremarkable 17th century Portuguese Mattancherry Palace, before doing some more shopping! That evening we returned to our fish restaurant of the night before and waited an hour for our white snapper to appear on the table, uncooked in the middle, so sending it back, we dined on mixed veg and chips! How disappointing!
Debbie's final day in India involved yet more shopping and bargaining with the Kashmiri salesmen - one in particular that we'd got to know was Nasser, who was a perpetual liar but very charming with piercing blue eyes - which it seemed made all the women swoon - I however saw through his fabricated life story (about his wife dying and him bringing up 3 kids alone, he later told me a completely different story about the kids being his best friend's who was a Kashmiri terrorist and it was his dying wish that Nasser take the kids - well unfortunately it was diffcult to know what to believe)
Dredging for sand
. We did find out a bit about the selling approach of these guys and how they multiply the price by up to ten times depending on nationality of the buyer! That evening, we went to the evening Sabbath service at the synagogue, as this tiny community managed to get enough people (minimum 10 men) to be able to hold services - however this is only in the high season, when there are lots of visitors from overseas to beef up the numbers (19 men in total and the same number of women and even a few children). It was a very special experience for both of us to participate in a service at this ancient synagogue and after the swift half hour of prayers, which were a little difficult to follow, they opened the ark and we could see the old ornate scrolls.
