Week 3: Fort Kochi to Pondichéry (via Madurai and Trichy)

1. Chinese fishing nets – a famous site in Fort Kochi and beautiful to see at sunset, chatting to the fishermen whilst the nets are in action (Mark found a fellow Arsenal fan in an Indian fisherman). Even more interesting is a bit further down the road where the fishing boats bring on their days catch and everyone gathers to have a nosey and grab some fish before it gets transported off. Certainly a highlight for us was to indulge in a fish platter with a chilled glass of Indian Sauvignon Blanc from the Karnataka region.

2. Hindu festivals – The Hindus certainly like festivals and with over 33million gods there’s a lot to celebrate.This week we spent two nights at the Shiva temple in Ernakulam to enjoy the Ulsavam festival. Just a 6p ferry ride from Fort Kochi. We experience loud drumming, kathakali dancing, singing, Indian classical music, fire crackers and elephants parading. We thought this was something fairly unique until we entered Tamil Nadu and visited three other temples and noticed they seem to have parades or celebrations each day.

3.Auyverdic massage – perhaps not quite a highlight, but certainly an experience. We both bared all in front of our Indian masseurs, got lathered in warm “medicated” oils and had a massage (lots of breast fondling involved), not for the prudish. A nice massage, but rather grim room with lots of mosquitoes made it difficult to fully relax.

4.Temples, Temples, Temples – We’ve entered into Tamil Nadu and the sacred heart of India, it boasts some of the oldest and largest Hindu temples. We had a bustling walk around Meenakshi Amman temple and a Zen-like walk around Sri Ranganathar swampy temple with a buzz of ‘ohmmmm’ in the background. Our favourite was a lovely evening walk up the steps to the rock fort temple, where we were able to watch the sunset over Trichy whilst sitting with the locals on a rock. Controversially it seems that most temples have their own temple elephant (or 7), these appear trained to take money from a worshiper, bless them by placing their trunk on your head and then handing the money over. We’re told that the temple elephants get treated really well and whilst they are completely mesmerising, we felt an overwhelming sadness at seeing these beautiful animals here rather than with their family in the wild (as per last week).

5. Pondicherry – Ahhh thanks French colonialism. Pondicherry and the neighbouring Auroville provide complete escapism from the bustle of India. There are beautiful colonial buildings, traffic free sections (with no horns) and French patisserie – bliss. We spent our first two nights in a beautiful yellow colonial guest house and enjoyed G&T (thanks air India) on the roof-top. We like it so much that we’ve decided to stay and checked in to a beach-side Ashram. With no mandatory check-out, only £8 (for 2)/night and daily meditation, who knows how long we’ll be here.

6.Gandhi – What a man! Peaceful politician, who campaigned for equality (both in caste and between the sexes) as well as Indian independence. We knew very little about him, including his involvement in creating the Indian flag, until we explored the Gandhi museum in Madurai.