April 4, 2018 – Cochin, India

Known as the “Queen of the Arabian Sea,” Cochin has been a bustling port for more than 1,000 years. In late medieval days, this city of cinnamon, cardamom, turmeric and countless other spices put India on the maps of European traders. Since then, Cochin has never stopped exporting these plants for culinary and medicinal uses. Still today, it is regarded as the world’s leading producer of pepper. Modern-day Cochin reflects the varied people who have settled here seeking their own spice fortune. Portuguese, Dutch, British and Chinese have all influenced the cityscape, culture and cuisine. The Mattancherry Palace is a fascinating example of this melding as European exteriors belie the Hindu temple art within. 

However, we did not go into Cochin today. We have been here before and opted for a tour that took us to the backwaters of Kerala. Kerala is the state in India where we are today. The island where the port is located is an artificial island was built by the English. They dredged out the channel so large boats could get in and with the silt they created the island. It took eight years to dredge the channel and another twelve to build the port. This was completed in 1940 and the British pulled out in 1947.

The people that live on the backwaters do things today as they did them 2000 years ago. Even though they have running water and electricity, they still use the canals for washing, cleaning of fish and bathing. Today it is two different lifestyles, we saw both big resorts and the people who are living their ancient lifestyle.

The town where the backwaters are located in is called Alleppey. It is a mixture of poor people and many middle-class people, living side by side. Our guide said the reason that there are so many middle-class people here is that they go to work in the Middle East and send the money home, and eventually return and build nice houses. He said there are three million people in this are that are working in the Middle East.

The backwaters are a maze of canals, lagoons, and lakes (or kayals), fringed by fertile rice fields. The large lake here stretches 95 kilometers down to Cochin and at points is 14 kilometers wide. To reach the backwaters we took a 1.5 hour bus ride south of Cochin.

Here are a few pictures taken on the way down.

When we got there, we got on our boat. There were only 26 of us so it was a nice small group.

This area is surrounded by rice paddies. Before this area had the road infratstructure they have today, they used to take the rice up the canals to the port in rice boats. Once the infrastructure was completed, they were able to send the rice overland much faster and they did not know what to do with the old rice boats. Then some great entrepreneur decided to turn them into house boats for tourists. Today there are more than 1,000 of these house boats on this waterway system.

As I mentioned before, they still do a lot of things the old way along the waterways.

There were also other sites to see. We saw kites (birds) and kingfishes.

And other sites.

And of course, the rice paddies. They grow to crops of rice each year. They do it during the two monsoon seasons, July and August, and October and November. After they harvest the crop they burn the fields and then they flood with the salt water. When the monsoon rains come, they wash away the salt water and they can then grow the rice.

Lastly, we stopped for lunch at a resort. In the state of Kerala, the ruling party is the communist party. They have elections every five years and the last election, the communist won. Our guide said that the other party, will win next time, they alternate as they all lie to the people so they think the other will do better the next time. There are only two parties at this time.

The reason I mention it is that the resort that we went to is owned by one of the communist politicians and he built it illegally on rice land. And, he was fined, but the resort is still there. We had a marvelous buffet lunch and then walked around the grounds, which were outstanding.

One of the things about Cochin is the Chinese Fishing Nets. They are a work of art and really catch the fish. There was one at the resort and some we saw on the way back to the port.

Now we have one sea day and off to Goa, India.