India: Kerala City 2023

Kerala, a state on India's tropical Malabar Coast, has nearly 600km of Arabian Sea shoreline. It's known for its palm-lined beaches and backwaters, a network of canals. Inland are the Western Ghats, mountains whose slopes support tea, coffee and spice plantations as well as wildlife.

🙂 A really different side to India – much calmer… Kathakali Dance.

🙁 Such a shame that it is so polluted

Our flight from Port Blair to Bangalore was significantly delayed and it was touch and go whether we would make our connecting flight to Kochi … we did it by the skin of our teeth! Landed in Kochi at 21h00 – completely different world. Cochin international airport in Kerala is the world’s first solar-powered airport – amazing! It was a two hour drive to our hotel called Fragrant Nature. A comfortable 5 star hotel. We ordered a quick room service meal before going to bed.

The next morning we were up for an early breakfast followed by a tour of the City.

We strolled around various interesting buildings.

Then on to the promenade where the old fashioned Chinese fishing nets are still in operation but are now mechanised. The government is supplying teak wood – each of these cost a million rupees!

We watched the fisherman skilfully cast their nets.

This plant is medicinal and helps with everything from high blood pressure to skin disease and sells for alot of money on the black market.

More interesting street scenes and churches.

The washer’s ghat was interesting – these washers are born into this caste and their ancestors have done this since the start of time…

We took a tuk-tuk to a place for lunch – very chatty driver who asked whether he could take us to the mall to get a voucher – we said no but gave him a good tip instead … think the restaurant was called the seagull … on the river – delicious prawn curry – very local venue.

After lunch we relaxed by the pool. I had a wonderful massage too. Blissful.

At 17h30 we were whisked off to a traditional dance which Prince Charles and Camilla had also visited when they were in Kerala. Kathakali which is the most famous among Kerala Dance Forms is usually performed by men with colourful attire to portray characters from the Ramanayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Kathakali is performed by men with colourful attire. It was very well done with the actor spending the first 30mins depicting the various motions associated with certain emotions. Boys are sent off to school to be trained intensively from a very young age. These dances are performed at the time of temple festivals and occasions and last for many hours, often overnight. A typical Kathakali Performance includes graceful movements of hands, legs and eyes. Props are also used in this dance, wherever necessary. A traditional drum, known as Chenda is played to accompany by one or two singers. These singers describe the story in their song. We arrived to watch them do their own makeup, followed by the dance – we actually really enjoyed the performance.

The eye work is really intense!

After the performance we headed back to or hotel for dinner on the rooftop accompanied by music – a lovely evening.

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