It’s been a crazy couple of weeks – we’ve been busy exploring the wonderful green state of Kerala and Matt (my bro) has also been here for a week. We’re now sitting on a train for the next 40 hours (en route to Mumbai) so we’ve finally got time to scribble down our exciting tales of elephants, monkeys, pigeons and leeches.

Kochin is a charming port in the middle of Kerala. Over the last five hundred years its been under Portuguese, Dutch and British rule – the result is small town with a European feel, but with the obligatory Indian twist. To the north of the town is the famous Chinese finishing nets, where groups of fishermen plunge the huge wooden frames into the sea and haul up their catch. The pickings seem rather slim these days, I suspect the fishermen now make their rupees from cruise-goers hopping on board for a quick snap.

When Matt arrived we headed out to watch a Kathakali performance. This famous Keralan dance sees characters with pistachio-green faces replay the Hindu story of Mahabharata. The characters dance to the mesmerizing sound of drummers and singers, telling their story through intricate hand movements and dramatic gestures. The powerful dancers and the fierce drumming gave rise to a gripping performance – it’s easy to understand why Kathakali rose to fame amongst India’s masses. Traditionally Kathakali is performed at the temples, with the story unfolding over 9 or more hours, our taster lasted just over an hour.

 

Later in the week we hired a rickshaw driver for an afternoon to take in Kochin’s sights. We visited the old spice market (in the 16th century Kochin was famous for its export of precious spices to the middle east and Europe), before heading to the Jain temple. Kochin’s Jain temple is simple in design and decoration and feels wonderfully calm, once you understand that the ubiquitous swastika is a Jain symbol, not an allegiance to the Nazi party. The temple is home to hundreds of pigeons, not the most elegant or characterful temple animal, but still entertaining. We arrived at feeding time – an orthodox Jain (with his muslin mask to prevent inhaling and thus killing insects) lead the lunchtime pigeon prayers. Buckets of rice and peas were thrown over the yard and hundreds of pigeons descended upon us – we joined the locals and fed them from our hands. I somehow couldn’t imagine doing this in Trafalgar square.

We moved on to Jew Town – so named due to the large population of Jews who used to reside there, before they emigrated to Isreal. There’s now less than 60 Jews in the whole of the state of Kerala. Jew Town is home to scores of Indian antique shops, selling a huge variety of collectables – from stone statues of Hindu Gods, through to vintage Bollywood movie posters. We stumbled upon a cute little shop – Athena Antiques – where we picked up a couple of old framed Hindu prints.