It was a busy morning of travel starting with a short tuk tuk to the train station where we hopped on a train to Kochi (which only cost us $1.40NZD for a comfortable 3.5 hour train ride). Once we arrived at the railway station in Kochi, we jumped on the metro line for one stop, then after a 10 minute walk with all our bags we jumped on a ferry for about 20 minutes, arriving at our final destination for the day around lunchtime.
Fort Kochi is a region in Kochi, which is a city and the largest metropolitan area in the southern state of Kerala. This place was reminiscent of Galle in Sri Lanka (we wrote a blog post about Galle previously), in the sense that it was colonised by the Portuguese, Dutch, and finally the British. Much of the architecture here is colonial and includes some of the oldest churches in India, built by the Portuguese in the 1500s.
Fort Kochi has a long messy history, however in modern times it has become a haven for tourists looking for yoga classes, boutique shopping, art galleries, and artsy cafes all within reach of small sandy beaches. Most of these things are right up our alley (maybe not the boutique shopping, but we can window shop). It is also an important centre of Keralan arts (traditional and contemporary) and a standout place to see Kathakali and Kalaripayattu.
Kathakali is a traditional form of Indian Classical Dance. It is usually based on the Hindu epics the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Drummers and singers accompany the actors, who tell the story through their precise movements, particularly mudras (hand gestures) and facial expressions. We went to see a show in the evening and it is a unique experience. The performers are all men taking on both male and female roles, and they are precisely painted with beautiful makeup so that their many facial expressions during the performance look otherworldly.
After the Kathakali show we stayed in the theatre to watch a Kalaripayattu performance. This is an ancient form of martial arts taught in Kerala, and is thought to be the forerunner of all martial arts and as ancient as 3000 years old. We had no idea what to expect from this performance, and were shocked when we saw two of the masters engage in an intense sword fight including flips and spins using real swords (although they were blunted). Many of their techniques are inspired by animal movements, and also seem to borrow from yoga poses. One of the performers was a young boy of about 9 years old who was spinning a stick very proficiently and doing some of the simpler movements. They would send him out to show some of the more basic techniques, and then one of the masters would come out to show the advanced techniques. It was really cool to see the progression from a child to a master who has trained their whole life in this ancient martial art. After the show, they asked if anyone wanted to come up on stage to learn some moves, so up I went. They taught me some basic grappling defense techniques such as how to defend when someone headlocks you from behind. I was in for a surprise when he demoed this on me, as it consists of a punch to the balls (very effective technique 😂).
We managed to find a local yoga instructor who offered private classes. His price for a private class was out of our budget, and when we told him this he said he would do it for about 1/5th of the price as “Money shouldn’t be a barrier to Yoga”. He was a young guy and was incredibly strong and flexible. The class was hard, but very rewarding and he gave me some tips on how to do a headstand (now I can finally be that cringy tourist doing headstands on the beach). He also gave us some great recommendations on where we should go after Kochi.
At one of the local art cafes (literally art galleries which are also cafes), we saw a painting that really caught our eyes, particularly Alice’s eyes as she teared up when she first saw it. A gorgeous portrait of five women wearing sarees painted by someone called Ramani. It was out of our budget by a lot, but Alice asked the gallery manager for this mysterious Ramani’s contact details and sent a lovely message. After five minutes Alice got a phone call from the artist who turned out to be a local grandmother in her eighties. She invited us to her penthouse suite in a building looking out over the harbour to see more of her art, and discuss purchasing the painting. We were given a full tour of her penthouse suite to see her paintings, and then driven by her driver in an actual car to see her gallery. Sidenote, being in a car is a real rarity for us these days. In the last two months I think we have been in about two cars.
Anyway back to the art story, it turns out she was the matriarch of a wealthy family in Kochi and her children are spread out around the world working important jobs. She spends her days painting now and her art is amazing. We were seriously considering splashing out and buying this painting to send back home. She did also lower the price for us and it would have cost around $950NZD, which is way more than we could afford to spend. But we both loved it and really want to bring some art home with us to fill the house we don’t own yet. We did go back to the gallery the next day to look at it one more time, and eventually decided it was too expensive and we couldn’t really justify spending the money sadly. I’m sure we will find some more amazing art on this trip which will be a bit more affordable.
It is a real struggle when visiting a city to get a sense of what it is like when you only have a few days there. We only really spent time in Fort Kochi which is a tiny part of Kochi, and I would have loved to explore further afield but we didn’t have time. From what I saw though, I definitely liked Kochi as a city and would love to go back there one day. Now it was time to leave the coast behind and head into the rolling hills of tea plantations and waterfalls where we could hopefully find some trekking.
