2/16 – Cochin, day two and Mattancherry Palace

We’ve researched our game plan today, since we can’t go to the waterfall (boo hoo), we’ve decided not to go all the way over to Fort Kochi, but just stay on the side of the town that is closest to the water facing Willingdon Island. We’ve pretty much covered all of Ft. Kochi, but not really this side – so what the heck. After our typical morning activities, we head out into the Tuk Tuk fray, ignoring all the calls for rides, and walk over to the ferry station. On our walk yesterday we spotted a ferry terminal that has a ferry going right across the river landing directly across from the Mattancherry Palace, which is our ultimate destination – so we aim for this station instead of the other one we scoped out. As we are walking, one of the tuk tuk guys is super persistent, following us down the street, telling us he would take us on a tour, which we keep refusing as we’ve been just about everywhere – except this palace. As we continue on our way, one of the cruise passengers came by in a tuk tuk and offered to take us wherever we wanted – he said he was paying! How sweet was that? Anyhow, we kindly refused his offer and kept heading to the other ferry terminal with our tuk tuk stalker in tow. Well, as it turns out, that particular ferry terminal didn’t have any service on Sunday. Darn. Well, the backup is always Uber anyway, so Plan B. Our tuk tuk stalker remained with us, persistent as ever, even though much pricier than Uber. We kept telling him Uber was cheaper, showing him the price, but he wouldn’t go that low – telling us his was a small business, a family enterprise. True, but….he started out at $5 USD each – nope. Got down to $5 USD – but the Uber was $2 USD. And the Uber driver is a small business, also, so yeah, what can we say! Our Uber tuk tuk arrived and we and zipped into town, directly to the Mattancherry Palace.

The Palace is also known as the Dutch Palace even though it was built by the Portuguese Empire in 1545 as a gift to the kingdom of Cochin. The Dutch took over the palace when they replaced the Portuguese rulers in the mid-1600s. Paying our totally expensive entrance fee of 5 INR each – seriously that is $0.06 cents USD – we enter into the Coronation Hall with an incredibly ornate wood ceiling and various other teak furniture that we aren’t able to get a good look at, because, unfortunately, we have arrived right behind a ship tour. Eek.

Quickly bobbing and weaving our way through the tour, we enter into the next room, the Ramayana Gallery with a whole host of murals on every wall that are traditional Hindu temple art depicting the scenes from the Ramayana – the epic that tells the life of Rama, the 7^th avatar of Vishnu. They are amazing – just beautiful examples of the old tradition of tempera, painting with egg yolk and various dyes that dry very quickly and permanently.

Moving on through the various other rooms, there are portraits of the different Rajas of Cochin, a room full of the history of how Kochi came into existence – Portuguese first, then the Dutch killed the Raja of Kochi in 1663 and took over, building their fort over the Portuguese fort. The British took over in the late 1700s moving to Ernakulam across the river from Fort Kochi. In 1920 the river was dredged and Willingdon Island – where we are docked – was formed and the port was established.

Other rooms contained various Palanquins (a covered box designed for one passenger to be carried by 4 to 6 people on two poles), made out of ivory, explanations of the makeup of the royal family plus tons of information on the martial arts form, Kalarippayattu, which was demonstrated to us last night in the folkloric show on board. One of the interesting facts: This form of Martial Arts went into decline during the British Rule because they actively worked to weaken any native military groups or uprisings. The British actually banned Kalarippayattu. Once British rule ended, in the 1920s, Kalarippayattu regained interest and revival through today.

More rooms with murals – including the seated Vishnu, called Thripunithura Appan here in Kerala – as well as Anantashavyi Vishnu and Ganadharva Moksha, a tale about two Gandharvas who didn’t acknowledge a powerful god and were then cursed to live as twisted intertwined trees. The final room held a hanging table surrounded by more current murals.

A great visit with loads of history for us – which of course we love. Now it is time for lunch – so out into the melee of streets around the Palace leading to Jewtown we go. Surprisingly, the shop owners aren’t quite as aggressive as others we’ve encountered, making the walk much more pleasant – although crowded with tourists and tuk tuks beeping at us to stay out of their way. We actually find a great pair of pants for Ed for far less than the port vendors were selling. And in the process meet a lovely shop owner who we chatted with for a while before heading out to find lunch. As it turns out, we ended up at the Ginger House Hotel – this was on our list but not one of our top choices as some of the reviews were a bit negative – pricey, slow, etc. For us? It ended up being a great choice. We walked through their fabulous “museum” of antiques then entered the open air restaurant grabbing a lovely table right on the water.

There were only a few others there – it was early – so it was nice and peaceful as we ordered our shared Kingfisher beer (wine is FAR too expensive to order in this country) that went along perfectly (so we were told by our waitress) with the traditional Kerala starter of “roast Prawns”. She was so right! The prawns were roasted, but with a slightly spicy sauce that was calmed down wonderfully when paired with a sip of Kingfisher. Our main plate was Tawa Fry – a local way to fry fish – which was wonderfully spiced and tender and perfectly done. We finished off with Parotta, a local bread, and another bottle of beer for a perfect chaser.

As we were finishing up our lunch, the restaurant started filling up with every tour group imaginable! Good timing on our part, as well as good choice as you know the restaurant has a good reputation if tour guides are bringing their charges here. Always important, particularly here in India. Back out in the streets, we wandered through Jewtown, but it was so crowded with tours and people, we reversed course, went back to our sweet shopkeeper to buy another pair of pants for me – yay – I decided at lunch I wanted a pair too – then decided to call an Uber to take us back to the port. As we came out of the shop though, who do we see? Our tuk tuk stalker! Who shouts out at us – are you done? Do you remember me? Ready to go back? Well, actually yes, we do and we are – and if it is still 500 INR then you’ve got a fare! We felt it was only right to ride with him after his morning stalking!

So off we go on our little tuk tuk ride back to the port – interspersed with offers of tours from our stalker, and suggestions of shops he can take us to! No, thank you, just the port please. He’s too funny. Through the traffic, past the dilapidated, or being built – who knows? – buildings, and across the Harbour Bridge we go before being safely deposited at the port gate entrance. Of course we also gave our stalker a tip – just because. It is a small business and family enterprise after all!

Back on board we have plenty of time before sail away – where Suriya has sweetly invited us to join her on the bow! So nice of her. We head down at the appointed hour, only for dummy me to forget I needed close toed shoes. Jeez-o-flip! You’d think I’ve never done this before. Well, okie dokie – here we go: I ran all the way back to the cabin (remember I am at the absolute front of the ship, running all the way to the absolute back of the ship) to change shoes and return. Phew! At least I proved I can still jog! After that excitement (or aggravation), all else went well and we spent a great hour out on the helipad watching Cochin, the Chinese fishing nets and the old colony buildings slide by into the sunset.