Just kidding, I like water…3 liters a day. Yesterday morning we were up bright and early to drive to Aleppy. The tour van driver is a wonder. He knows all the short cuts, he got us there 2 hours earlier than anticipated and they weren’t even ready with our lunch. Of course the public bus driver strike did help a little given that there were hardly any buses on the route. It’s funny how the unions work here. The state runs all the city buses but they hire drivers through several different unions. If only one union is striking the other unions continue life as usual. Either they don’t care about solidarity through union cohesion or their system is a lot different than the US’s—I could be wrong about this. The drivers were upset—perhaps rightly so—that the state was mucking with their pension.
We arrived at the houseboat—incredible thing—about noon and set up for a leisurely motoring around the ‘Venice of India,’ otherwise known as the backwaters. The backwaters are channels between massive rice fields. We got to see a floating duck regalia and to see ducks being herded—both are a sight to see. People live along the narrow expanses of land between the channels and get to work/school via boat, although we did see a auto-rickshaw so some are connected to roadways. We slept 3 to a room and while it was a little crowded it was still fun. The staff turned the AC on full blast and by 1:30 am we were freezing. I couldn’t figure out how to shut it off, apparently there was a remote, or alternately a button. Go figure they’d tell me the morning after! I didn’t want to wake everyone else up to turn on a light….little did I know everyone was half awake anyway. I had to go searching for coffee in the morning since it is not the usual morning drink….I haven’t figured that out yet. They heat milk and then pour instant coffee into it for us. It works but I looked forwarded to drip coffee from freshly ground beans.
Today we traveled to Fort Kochi. It is on an island attached via bridge to the mainland. There are many churches and one ancient synagogue at the end of the lane through Jew Town. I kid you not that is the name of the area. It’s on all the shop signs even though there is only one official Jew left in town. Sarah Cohen still hand tats doilies with menorahs on them—even into her nineties. A ferry ride across to Kochi proper and we met up with another group from Iowa also studying sustainable housing. I like our group better. We attended a local dance performance put on in our honor---wonderful but we had to leave immediately after to catch the last ferry back to Fort Kochi at 9:20pm—and we still hadn’t had supper! My stomach was growling and so were a few others so we decided to stop on the way back to the hotel. After waiting too long with no menus or recognition other than having seated us, we decided another restaurant might work better. Several restaurants were already closed for the night so we threw ourselves on the mercy of the Harbor House. They had just closed the kitchen but re-opened it for us. I am so glad. Even though the prices were high according to other places we’ve eaten, it was the best tasting beef fillet I’ve ever had—yes a little insensitive in a Hindu culture but no one at our table was of the faith. Everyone else said that their food was the best they’d ever had of that particular dish. So I highly recommend the The Harbor Hotel restaurant to anyone traveling through Fort Kochi, Kerala, India.
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