Kochi

while vinh was here we made a trip to the communist state of kerala. and no, i'm not joking about it being communist. the current elected government is communist, workers unite!

anywho, kerala is on the western coast of india and it's mostly known for the 'backwaters.' these are miles and miles of waterways that people live on. they are really beautiful and extremely peaceful b/c you get away from the cars, horns, smog, and trash of the streets. although, the waterways are starting to get clogged with all the tourist boats on the water. see next post about the backwaters.

we flew into kochi (aka cochin). kochi was a really nice and chill place, unlike any of the other cities we've been to in india. there were a lot of hippie tourist types camped out here (but not as many as hampi). besides the humidity, which was pretty hot, kochi was a nice city to just walk around. i know i previously joked about the noise and pollution of the cities, but this city wasn't that bad. there were only a few cars and rickshaws and things didn't move as fast as hyderabad or delhi, you could just mosey around at a leisurely pace.

behind us are the famous chinese fishing net of kochi.
they actually don't catch much fish with them
anymore. they're mostly for show now.

the food in kerala was excellent. our days become all about where were we going to eat that day. the group favorite was definitely the 'fort house,' although honorable mention has to go to 'the tea pot' for it's fantastic chocolate cake which i hiked back across the entire city to have.

dinner at the fort house

the delicious chocolate cake from 'the teapot.'

kochi is right on the water so there were ferries going around to the neighboring cities. it was actually laid out similiar to the bay area. we found riding the ferries was a cheap way to beat the heat and see some sights.

kochi was a dutch and portugese colony in the past, so the architecture has a european feel to it. while a new building, our b&b hostel had a portugese feel to it. speaking of our hostel, we stayed at a great place, the mother tree b&b. there are only four rooms and we had them all occupied, so we basically had the place to ourselves. the owners were these two brothers anu and shyam who were super nice and helpful. all in all we give kochi two thumbs up.