Chris and Kerala, part 1!

Chris has arrived in India (on Feb 26) for a 2-week vacation with me! Hooray! We met up in Kochi (state of Kerala in the Southwest) where Fulbright was hosting its annual conference. The hotel for the conference was 5-star and felt like a world unto itself, with a huge (triple-level) outdoor pool, lovely garden spaces, and enormous buffets of food at every meal. One meal was a "sadya" lunch -- an assortment on a banana leaf. We had cultural events and speakers in the evenings.

Kerala is the state where our son Midhun is from, and has a unique cultural, historical, and geographical character. It has a very high rate of literacy, strong ecotourism initiatives, some of the best spices and teas in India, rubber plantations, flowing freshwater backwaters as well as ocean (Arabian Sea) beaches, and a tropical climate. Kerala was named as one of the ten paradises of the world by National Geographic Traveler.

Kerala has a strong Christian presence, due to the arrival of St. Thomas in the 1st century A.D., with many Christians eventually being subsumed under the Catholic umbrella. We visited the famous St. Francis church, built in 1503, which at one time held the tomb of Vasco Da Gama and has a wooden ceiling resembling a boat.

There is also a strong Jewish settlement in Kochi that dates as far back as the 12th century. While in Kochi, we visited the area of the city known as "Jew Town" with its synagogue and meandering lanes filled with shops full of handicrafts, spices, clothing, colorful murals, and more. The floor tiles of the synagogue are handpainted and were imported from China.

The Chinese arrived in the area in the 1300s under the reign of Kubla Khan, bringing with them the remarkable and still-functional fishing nets. The Portuguese, under Vasco da Gama, arrived in Kerala in the early 1500s, and the Dutch in the 1600s. We visited the Dutch Mattencherry Palace (and museum) and Fort Kochi (remnants of ramparts and more shops). My favorite photo of this set is the one of the men playing carom on the side of a street.

Here are a few more photos of a Kochi beach and a fisherman with a net.

Seven years ago after my previous Fulbright, I got my nose pierced. During one of our Kochi excursions, I lost my nose stud somehow (sweat and humidity), so I stopped in at a tiny shop and asked if they sold them. They did, but were asking a high price. (This is a heavy tourist area, so haggling is a MUST.) So I stated a "final offer" and the woman in charge gave a big grin and said, "You have happy inside you, so I will give you this price." I gave her a big hug and we shared more laughter over nothing really, just the joy of living. (Lesson: A little "happy" goes a long way.) I am now sporting a silver nose ring.