2/17/06: Sunrise, Sunset and The Fishernet Stocking

Another day down south, another awe-inspiring seaside sunrise, punctuated by a few rounds of “Tern, Tern, Tern,” from the Byrds crowding the friendly skies of the Kerala backwaters. Kanju sated our appetites with a delicious breakfast prior to a final cruise back upriver and along the lake back to the Kumarakom resort, for the two-hour trip back to Cochin. The registrar at the elegant Taj Malabar was kind enough to upgrade us to an Arabian Sea View suite containing even tastier sweets--the first decent dark chocolate in almost a month. With a few moments to spare before touring began, Rick swam sideways figure eights in the infinity pool and Anne checked out the stretching machine in the fitness center.

At 2 pm, we were met in the lobby by Jacob, who apparently did his training at the Milton Powers Academy of Speed Guiding. If Sunny was Buono, then Jacob was NoNo. We spent our first 30 minutes wandering Jew Town trying to find out when to show up for services on Saturday (yes, that’s really the name of a Cochin neighborhood, and not a campy Broadway musical…see 2/18 for more details). According to most management theorists, we could have saved this precious half hour, if Jacob had made this inquiry before picking us up. That left just 45 minutes for shopping in Jew Town, where Anne and Rick, feeling the pressure from a still lengthy outstanding gift list, became remarkably productive on the clothing front. By the time we arrived at Cochin’s famous Chinese fishing nets, Jacob took 5 minutes to explain that these mammoth green meshes were primarily tourist attractions, yielding about as much fish as a Kolsky family fly fishing adventure (where Rick DID catch one of Matt’s ears, but not any trout). Then, he bid us adieu for our evening sunset cruise, on a boat where the two boatman had a 20 word English vocabulary and diction that would make Inspector Clouseau wince! Nevertheless, our cruise around the Cochin harbor provided plenty of delightful sights and sounds, once we got past the first hour of oil tankers and a “mainland” resembling a Florida port city, with modern, high rise apartment buildings and hotels.

In addition to this mainland, Cochin harbor plays host to a few coconut-covered islands and a quaint peninsula known as Fort Cochin, across the causeway from the man-made Willington Island landfill which houses the Taj Malabar as well as a railway and container ports to the east and west. We were circling one of the small islands, when an armada of fishing vessels and Hitchcock-like hordes of birds headed ashore. As we neared the port, we first gagged at the site of men dumping buckets and buckets of blood-stained liquids from their decks. As we nervously pulled up alongside the vessels, we witnessed the boats unloading a treasure trove of silver (fish, that is) from their decks to awaiting ice-packed lorries. Further up the shore, the trees were stork white, as the baby deliverers patiently awaited a scrap feast.

Fort Cochin, home to Jew Town, boutique stores, and colonial estates was our sunset destination. The ceremonial Chinese fishing nets at its port provide the perfect silhouette for the star of our solar system’s encore presentation of “Reds.” Only an obnoxious tourist boat clogging the panorama marred the near-perfect image.

Back to the Taj for a quick shower and then a Kathakali dance performance, which was interesting, and mercifully brief. A heavily made-up male dancer (heavily everything, to be perfectly frank) demonstrated a number of the traditional moves, primarily squinting, grimacing, and bug-eyeing. He later returned for a one-man show as the woman demon with the firm-but-poisonous breasts in a Krishna story, which ends with an ear-piercing scream and a mouthful of scraggly black hair (ergo, the term Hairy Krishna). Our delectable barbeque dinner at the Taj on the harbor was perhaps less cultural, but far tastier and fulfilling.