Fort Cochin No 3

03.08.09 Allo once again.

It's been a sunny weekend in Kochi, and the sunset at the beach in Fort Cochin attracted a large crowd on sunday evening. Here it is in all its colours.

Allo again.

I'm busy doing an English language taching course this month, so photo opportunities are reduced at present.

I've scraped the barrel and found a few new things to display. Below is a view of Kochi harbour from Ernakulam, the gap in the centre of the horizon is the space between Fort Cochin on the left and Vypeen Island on the right.

Wandering around the market area of Ernakulam, which was a lot quieter than usual on a sunday.

Below is MG (Mahatma Gandi) road in Ernakulam, the main shopping street in Kochi. Above is a cinema on MG road.



This is my guesthouse, and the views looking up and down Kunnumpuram Road which it's situated on.


I must be struggling for new photos, these two are the views from the roof of my guesthouse. That's the Santa Cruz Basilica in the distance below.


The youth(s) of Kerala with their photographer.


I've been trying to take some photos during the spells of torrential rain, but I've not had great success due to the inherently wet conditions during the deluges. The above photo was taken while I was queueing up for a ticket at Fort Cochin jetty to travel over to Ernakulam. It was an exciting 15 minutes on the boat in the rain, most of the precipitation seemed to find its way inside the boat very easily.

I wanted to upload these photos but not publish them as a post until I'd got more snaps to include. For some reason I couldn't save the draft post, so I had to publish it. These photos were taken last night, at peak time on the Fort Cochin sunset stroll. It gets a big draw, even on a cloudy evening.

Alleppey to Kottayam

Allo again.

I went on a DIY day trip out of Kochi yesterday to see some of the famous backwaters of southern Kerala. It involved taking a bus from Kochi to Alleppey, then a wait of a couple of hours in Alleppey until taking the next local ferry to Kottayam at 2.30pm. Once I arrived in Kottayam, I took a bus back to Kochi and eventually got home around 9pm.

The backwaters is probably Kerala's main tourist asset. It's a state with varied geography including beaches, backwaters, rainforests and mountains, but the backwaters seems to get the most visitors as they are often used as a means to travel between the towns of southern Kerala.

The backwaters stretch over a large part of the southern half of Kerala, and like most aspects of Keralan life have been in existence for thousands of years. There's a Hindu myth on how Kerala was created by Parasurama throwing his axe from the foot of the mountains out to sea, and the sea waters receded back to where his axe landed thus forming the low lying western part of Kerala. The myth actually reflects to an extent what really happened thousands of years ago when sea levels fell during the course of an ice age, and the Indian peninsula rose higher due to tectonic movements, forcing the sea waters to recede and create what is now the backwaters.

The backwaters are used for rice growing on a large scale, as the abundance of fresh water that flows down from the Keralan mountains means that there's never any short supply. People live among the canals and islands that compose the backwaters, often in houses that sit on thin slivers of land not more than a metre above the water. Ferries and boats are the only practical form of transport, and the Keralan state government provides a lot of services throughout the network of canals so that people can move around with relative ease.

Unfortunately it was overcast for most of the 3 hours of my ferry trip, but I managed to go mental with the camera and the results are posted below. If I did this same trip between November and February, there would be a lot more tourist traffic along the route but the sun would be shining and the colours of the landscape wouldn't be so subdued.

I began by taking a wander around Alleppey town centre. I first came here in 2002, and most things still seem to be in the same place as they were when I last came in 2006. Alleppey is called the "Venice of the East", and it too may look different in about 50 years from now if sea levels continue to rise.






Check out the glory that is Alleppey's Bus stand.


I needed a glass of Lemon Soda after taking in the sights of the bus stand.

This is the ferry that I took from Alleppey to Kottayam, moored at Alleppey jetty waiting to depart.














Throughout the year there are houseboats travelling around the backwaters, carrying groups of tourists from one place to another with overnight stays. It must be heaven for the mosquitoes having all that tasty flesh to dine upon.








Check out the toilet facilities on board the ferry. No need for flushing cisterns here.

A local pub, or Toddy Parlour. It looks like that bloke is having problems with his Lunghi.








There's lots of bridges to enable people to cross the canals, some of them even lift up to allow boats to pass.



Kottayam is a nice town, it's where the book "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy is based. As I wanted to get home at a decent hour, I didn't stop to take any photos of the sights. There's a church a few kilometres away from Kottayam where Haile Selassie has signed the visitor's book, and being a big Reggae fan I might have to go and seek this out sometime soon.

Jah live
Chris