Posts Tagged: Fort Kochi
At the beach
“We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off-limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.”
~Pema Chödrön
I took this random candid shot at the beach at Fort Kochi. The little family looked really cosy with the baby engrossed in making sand castles while her parents looked indulging at her efforts. Reminded me of my childhood…… the first time I saw the sea……. and this vast expanse of different looking mud (sand) and of course so much water……. water as far as the eye could see……. touching the sky and the sun and all those stars…….. millions of them!!! The place was Puri in Odisha. It was the first time I saw the sea or that much water. It was a revelation. I wouldn’t let go of dad’s hands and held on tight. Living among the hills….. with two rivers that dry up by winter……. witnessing so much water and all that noise of the waves was monumental. I have never forgotten that first. Also made my first sand castle 😀 I had taken a very long time to build that one also was very meticulous about it. It was a lopsided structure looking like a hill and I had taken a lot of pain to make a tunnel through it and decorating it shells that I had collected in the beach….. It also had a garden wall and a garden. Most of the time the whole structure crumbled down only to rebuild it all over again. Writing on the sand with my newly learnt vocab and drawing crazy stuff on the sand only to see all of it wash away by the waves.
I have often tried to recapture that innocence and built many castles over the years in different beaches in different states and countries……. still that first castle that I had build in Puri remains in memory as my favorite. I can probably build better castles today but the innocence of the first one is just a memory today.
Stairs……. Neemrana Tower House, Fort Kochi
I took this pic at the Neemrana Towers, Fort Kochi. This is a heritage NON-hotel. A beautiful place to stay when you are at Fort Kochi. It is built around a 17th century light house. Not many hotels in Kochi would offer a chance to discover the old world charm where, sailors, travellers, traders, planters feasted and danced under chandeliers, suspended from high wooden ceilings. It is like stepping into another old world with antique furniture and antique settings but with the best air conditioning and plumbing 😀
It is a mix of the old and the new. These are the wooden stairs that lead to the reception. The cost makes it at par with budget hotels so it is affordable to one and all. More Pics Coming up
Chinese Fishing nets
I took this pic on my recent visit to Cochin. The Chinese Fishing nets are found in the beaches at Fort Kochi and date back to the 15th century. Fort Kochi is a small little sea side town near fort Cochin. The nets are suspended into the sea upto 15 feet deep and are used to catch fish in the deep sea. The nets are counter weighed by huge boulders weighing more than 1000s of kilograms. They are still manually operated. Normally one net requires 6 fishermen to pull through. The people who work on these nets don’t own them. The net owners operate on a 70 to 30% profit ratio with the fishermen. A net like this costs about 10 lac rupees. They let me pull the nets for some catch but all that came up was some crab and some little fish.
It is a busy occupation for rest of the year but in the Monsoon most of the fish move to the deep sea to breed so the fishermen survive mainly through tourism. The fishermen sell some of the catch at the beach itself. I noticed mostly little prawns and some very little fish and some crabs. Tourists buy the fish from these fishermen and take it to the local hotels where they clean and cook it for you.
The sunsets and sunrise create a beautiful saffron hue around the nets. I went in the monsoon so was not so lucky to get the hues. It was more grey and dark. But visiting the nets was an experience by itself.
