Kochi - our longest stop yet

We hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and ate some extra turkey for us. We arrived on the 24th, and unfortunately, were caught off guard by the fact that Christmas Eve dinner is the big event here. By the time we decided to partake in the fancy buffet dinner at a nearby hotel, it was sold out. Too bad.

Christmas morning dawned and we exchanged our Christmas cards, thought about friends and family, ate candy canes and headed out to call home. My mom's line was busy, but we managed to get through to Mark's folks and chat for about 15 minutes. It was great to catch up and hear how things are going at home. Sorry about the weather - I guess I shouldn't complain that it's pretty warm here, hey?

One of the unique things about Fort Cochin is that it has had Portugese, Dutch, and British influence. The architecture is a melange, different from other places that we've seen so far, and it's quite beautiful. We wandered all over town during the day, checking out the sights. There are a couple of old churches, a Dutch cemetary, an excellent palace/museum, and the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth - built in 1568 - among other things.

The waterfront is about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. Along part of the seawall, there are complicated cantilevered Chinese fishing nets that apparently take 4 - 6 people to operate. I'm skeptical that they're still used as I haven't ever seen them in the water. However, they are pretty to look at and are the unofficial symbol of the town. People stroll by in the evening, pick out a fish from the row of stalls and have it cooked up for them at the open-air restaurant across the street.

At one point in our wanderings around town, we came upon Dazzler Hair Dressing & Gents Beauty Parlour. What a great opportunity for Mark to have his van dyke trimmed for Christmas. He now looks very respectable indeed, and for only 30 rupees!

It seemed like we walked forever yesterday! Late in the afternoon we stopped at Koder House (fancy schmancy hotel that used to be a residence) for a cold Kingfisher - ahhhhh! and then off to our hotel for a wee nap before dinner. We're having trouble figuring out the pattern of dinner here. When we wander by at 6:00, places are dead. There's nothing more unappealing than eating in an empty restaurant, so we figured we'd have a little rest and head out later. Oooops! We very nearly slept through dinner! We hopped out of bed and headed for the wine degustation at the fancy hotel next to ours, but it was dead in the wine bar, and the kitchen had just closed in the (gorgeous) main restaurant. What? It was only 9:30. What to do for Christmas dinner? We ended up at the next best place, the Old Harbour Hotel where they squeezed us in, as it was packed. By the time we were seated and our dinner of shrimp curry (Mary), and fish in orange cardamom sauce (Mark) arrived it was close to 11:00. Many of the menus state something like "your meal will be made to order - please enjoy the relaxing wait of 30 - 45 minutes". Mark unwisely chose to drink wine with dinner - India's wine makers have a lot to learn still! I was smart enough to stick with Kingfisher blue. Curry and beer - life is good.

The restaurant was quite beautiful, with a lush outdoor seating area lit by glowing candles. Our table was on the terrace overlooking the garden, which was very pleasant and probably far less mosquito laden. We made our way back to our hotel close to midnight which I'm sure is a record for me after Christmas dinner, and each had a slice of authentic Indian Christmas plum cake to round out our day.

As an aside, our waiter spoke English quite well so we asked him why alcohol is SO difficult to find in this country. He explained that it costs 10 laks (1 million rupees or $25,000) for a liquor license for one year, so most restaurants remain unlicensed, and for home consumption, there are only a few government liquor stores in any one city!

Our plans for our next move are made and tickets are in hand. Off to Mangalore and then Goa by train over the next two days. Can't wait to see what riding the rails is like here!