Fort Cochin had come highly recommended with descriptive terms like ‘ visual retreat’, ‘beautiful’, ‘the main city of Kerala’, and a ‘cauldron of diverse cultures’ which lead to my high expectation.
Day one – Checking out the streets of Fort Cochin
Our first morning in Fort Cochin found us wading through the main strip of town knee-deep in flood water, carrying our shoes, and moving at a pace of .0002 seconds per km.
We make it to Jew town, a main attraction of Fort Cochin, with mud splashes all up our legs and arse, but it was ok, it suited the dusty, muddy, environment. Unfortunately, being a Friday, jew town was closed, making it a ghost town instead of the impressive line up of handicrafts and antique stores expected.
The effort came with the very dedicated rickshaw drivers/sales men, who kept cutting us off by parking their rickshaws right in our path, stopping us in our tracks to try to convince us that we should ‘do them a favour’ by letting them take us to a ‘government run’ art gallery (smell commission anyone?)
Rickshaw driver /salesman – ‘You need to understand, if I can take you to the gallery, I will get a free T-Shirt’
I fell for that line in Bali buddy, its wasn’t going to happen india.
Tiara in Transit 