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Fort Cochin is a small but quaint town at the northern point of the Kerelan backwaters. An antique of a town, laid back and quiet, a great deal smaller than we both had expected.
Colonized by the Portuguese and then the Dutch in 1500/1600, the spice warehouses are still just about still standing. The town has its very own "Jew town" comprising of a line of antique shops pathing the way to the small synagogue. Unfortunately most of the old town is in ruin, the buildings have been left to whomever cares to live in them without requiring to care for them. The museum does it's best to tell the long history of the place on what is obviously a meager budget.
FC is a mix of boutique hotels with elderly tourists and the usual guest houses with scraggy travellers. The boutique hotels sell Indian wines and serve tapas in trendy wine bars whilst the pikey travellers eat croissants at the charming local cafes.
The famous cantilevered Chinese fishing nets that line the front are the main attraction here; contraptions made from bamboo, netting and rope are lowered into the sea and then raised by several men operating rudimentary pulleys and stone counterweights - they don't seem to work that well - we witnessed only a few tiny fish come up caught in the nets, hardly seems worth their while but serves as a tourist trap - they call you over to take part and take pictures - fish sellers sell much larger catches for you to select and buy and get cooked up at one of the roadside shacks depending on how daring you are.
The Delight guesthouse is another tripadvisor winner with a delightful owner who couldn't do enough to help, the room is delightfully adorned with wooden furniture, the house set in a delightful manicured garden facing a parade square in which ad hoc cricket matches are played throughout night and day.
The temperature is now rising at every new stop - it is sweltering - we need a delightful pool and we don't have one. It's that time of year in India when everything has to be air-conditioned; the cars, the rooms and the restaurant's, I'm going through at least two t-shirts a day and several cold showers, the only way to survive is to use both the fan and the air conditioning on full power - fingers up to global warming - this is becoming basic survival.
Sheena is wilting badly in this heat and what with her lingering sea sickness lasting now more than two days since leaving the stormy backwaters, every time she stands - she sways like a drunk. We are now of course taking a minimum of 8 tablets a day; The four smarties that Doc Diggler and his mighty stethoscope (& 10 nympho nurses) had prescribed for the little ladies stomach */** , two maleria numbers, the iron tablet, the vitamin tablet and the indigestion tablet (usually required after the ice cream, the mars bar, the pack of lays crisps, the parle-g bickies & the foxes glacier sweets that can go down daily - although I must also confess that I am developing an addiction to the odd packet of parle-G glucose biscuits!.)
Getting up the east coast has proved a bit of a test with many man-hours spent on cleartrip, expedia and tripadvisor. For those of you that might be thinking of following in our footsteps make a note; don't try and book a train in India during the school holidays in March & April - no chance - every train is fully booked, some with waiting lists..… we are starting to understand why everyone in Nepal had already been to India - traveling clockwise round the continent must cost double the amount of heading in a counter clockwise direction - next stop up the coast is the palm tree lined beaches of GOA- I'm looking forward to the flight and my Kingfisher curry;the finest airline food in the universe! - and then it's time for the great white belly to come out at last.
(*Note to our respective Mams; neither Sheena nor I watch or own any 70's porn movies, the assumptions are purely speculative.)
(**please send any complaints to [email protected]/f-offexpolringyourself)
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