On Sunday, November 1st, a free-time walk was scheduled for 6:30, but Sudha cancelled it, so we slept in. After breakfast, I caught a current play-by-play description of the last few minutes of the Notre Dame-Temple football game on the iPad. The Irish came from behind to defeat the previously undefeated Owls, 24-20.
The interior of the bus was decorated with balloons and streamers and at the front was "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY JOY." A large, elaborate and beautiful lei of white and yellow flowers was put around her neck and she was presented with a very nice red and white bouquet.
Then we went to the Jewish Quarter and visited the synagogue. In 1947, it had 400 members, but now there are only six. It's a beautiful place: oddly, the floor is covered with blue and white tiles showing Chinese scenes. Two or three hundred years ago, a merchant with a shipload of such tiles bought in China had stopped in Kochi on his way to Europe to sell them, and had been so impressed by the congregation there that he had donated these tiles.
The Jewish Quarter is now full of shops, mostly operated by Kashmiris. Again, our group did its best to improve the economy of an underdeveloped country. In fact, shopping was so intense that Sudha had to extend our time there from an hour to seventy-five minutes.
After lunch at our hotel, where Mary Joy was presented with a birthday cake and, of course, a rendition of "Happy Birthday to You," Sudha came up with an impromptu free-time activity. We caught a public bus to Ernikulam, the modern, mainland, commercial and most populous part of Kochi. Like in Mexico, these buses have a human ticket seller, who at each stop yells out the destination to those waiting on the street. Generally, women sit on the right side of the bus and men sit on the left, but in Kochi, at least, this isn't a hard and fast rule (a digression: in this morning's The Hindu newspaper, the column answering questions on English usage discussed the origin of the phrase "hard and fast"--it's a nautical term relating to a ship going aground). On this sort of bus there is no glass in the windows. When it started raining heavily, the ticket man quickly went around the bus, unhooking the loops that held up the khaki cloth (canvas?) window covering. When the rain stopped, passengers started hooking the loops up again, pulling the window cover up like a reefed sail. I did those loops by my window. When we arrived, we took the little auto-taxis to the beginning of Ernakulam's pretty waterfront promenade, where Sudha had hoped to catch the ferry back to Fort Cochin, but that ferry wasn't running, so after a short stroll on the promenade,
and some peanuts from a vendor who roasted his nuts not in oil, but in sand, which he sifted out when they were done,
we took tuk-tuks to another jetty, where at 3:40 p.m. Sudha got into the ticket line for the 4:00 ferry. We waited in front of the ferry terminal, where there was a breeze. Nearly ten minutes later, we were alarmed to discover that Sudha was still standing in the same place: the line hadn't moved at all. 
But he explained waterthat the ticket booth was only now opening, ten minutes before the boat was scheduled to leave. He told us to stand at the gate to the ferry, and soon he was there with our tickets. We reached our ferry by boarding and crossing a different ferry. Not long afterwards, we were out on the water, and after some minutes we landed at Fort Cochin's main ferry landing, where we got onto tuk-tuks and went back to our hotel.
Since the optional sunset cruise with Kathakali dance performance had fallen through due to lack of interest (which ticked Mary Joy off,because she had been looking forward to it), we decided to go to the 5:30 English-language mass at Santa Cruz Cathedral, as shown on a sign outside the church. However, since this was All Saints Day, the schedule was changed. Instead, we joined a procession to the cemetery chapel (a couple of men told us that it was one kilometer away, but we later figured from the street signs that it was actually two kilometers. We marched along,double-file, umbrellas out against a light rain, behind a group of women (nuns?) in salmon-colored saris. Ahead, they were praying the rosary in Malayalam (the local language). Some women next to us were saying it in accented English (it wasn't clear where in Asia they were from, but they didn't appear to be local). When Mary Joy joined in, they had her lead their prayer for one decade (not ten years, but one unit of the rosary: an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be to the Father).
After about half an hour of walking on the edge of the street, against the traffic, which was still hurtling by, as fast as it could go, we arrived at the cemetery chapel. It was full, so we stood out on the porch in front. Unlike masses for Indians in Minnesota, this was not a Syro-Malabar Rite mass, which tends to run for two hours, this was a Latin-Rite mass, exactly like ours, only in Malayalam. Mary Joy liked the music, though it was heavily miked and, along with
the violins, snare drum and one male and one female singer, the ensemble included a synthesizer. The homily was impassioned, and I figured that the priest was a good speaker, though I couldn't understand a word. The Kiss of Peace, which in the U.S. Is a Handshake of Peace, in Kochi is a Bow of Peace, with your hands folded as if in prayer--in other words, the standard Indian greeting pose that in the North is associated with saying "Namaste," but with a deeper bow. Communion is in the mouth, not in the hand.
Immediately after mass, there were prayers associated with a list of names, presumably the parishioners who had died during the past year. After that, things continued, but we decided to leave. We started walking the way we had come, but after a lengthy walk we saw a tuk-tuk stop across the street from us, so we went over and asked him to take us to the Malabar House hotel. I asked him what that would cost, in reply, he asked what I would offer. "Fifty rupees?" I asked--that was the cost of most short tuk-tuk rides we had taken (about 75 cents). He agreed, and we drove off to the Malabar House. The driver asked if he should wait, but we weren't sure when we'd be done eating, so we said no.
But the Malabar Junction restaurant was full and we didn't want to wait 45 minutes for a table, so we looked in Lonely Planet. That guide had two starred restaurants, Malabar Junction and Dal Roti. I had read that the latter was closed on Sundays, so we settled on Casa Linda and went outside. The same tuk-tuk was there, and when I asked the driver what it would cost to go to Casa Linda, he gave me the same answer as before, so I gave him the same reply, and we were off. While driving, he said that there was a very good restaurant nearby, Dal Roti. I replied that our guidebook said that it was closed on Sunday's, but he said that our guidebook was wrong. So we drove to Dal Roti and, sure enough, it was open,and had a two-person table available right out front, in a sort of enclosed entryway. The driver said that he could be back an hour later, and gave us his card, in case we finished earlier and wanted to call him.
It was a North Indian restaurant, with a very different vibe from the very elegant Malabar Junction--sort of backpacker-meets-the-Middle-East. At first, Mary Joy was disappointed. This was not the style or type of restaurant that she had wanted for her birthday dinner. At first we were going to order a chicken biryani apiece, but the woman who took our order--she may have been the owner's wife--said that that would probably be too much, and that it might be better to order one, split it and add something else. Mary Joy was considering dal (a lentil dish), but the woman said that that wouldn't work with the biryani, and suggested splitting a chicken kati roll instead. We were very pleased with the results,and could see how the restaurant was so highly praised by both Lonely Planet and Tripadvisor. The total price, including a mango lassi and a bottle of water, was 350 rupees (about $5.25), to which we added a 40 rupee tip. When we finished, the tuk-tuk was waiting. As we rode back to the hotel, the driver told us odds and ends about Kochi, hoping, I think, to be employed to tour the town, but Mary Joy had to tell him that we would be leaving Kochi at 5:30 the next morning. I paid him a hundred rupees, instead of our usual fifty, but I have trouble feeling particularly virtuous about paying someone $1.50 instead of 75 cents.
The interior of the bus was decorated with balloons and streamers and at the front was "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY JOY." A large, elaborate and beautiful lei of white and yellow flowers was put around her neck and she was presented with a very nice red and white bouquet.
Then we went to the Jewish Quarter and visited the synagogue. In 1947, it had 400 members, but now there are only six. It's a beautiful place: oddly, the floor is covered with blue and white tiles showing Chinese scenes. Two or three hundred years ago, a merchant with a shipload of such tiles bought in China had stopped in Kochi on his way to Europe to sell them, and had been so impressed by the congregation there that he had donated these tiles.
The Jewish Quarter is now full of shops, mostly operated by Kashmiris. Again, our group did its best to improve the economy of an underdeveloped country. In fact, shopping was so intense that Sudha had to extend our time there from an hour to seventy-five minutes.
After lunch at our hotel, where Mary Joy was presented with a birthday cake and, of course, a rendition of "Happy Birthday to You," Sudha came up with an impromptu free-time activity. We caught a public bus to Ernikulam, the modern, mainland, commercial and most populous part of Kochi. Like in Mexico, these buses have a human ticket seller, who at each stop yells out the destination to those waiting on the street. Generally, women sit on the right side of the bus and men sit on the left, but in Kochi, at least, this isn't a hard and fast rule (a digression: in this morning's The Hindu newspaper, the column answering questions on English usage discussed the origin of the phrase "hard and fast"--it's a nautical term relating to a ship going aground). On this sort of bus there is no glass in the windows. When it started raining heavily, the ticket man quickly went around the bus, unhooking the loops that held up the khaki cloth (canvas?) window covering. When the rain stopped, passengers started hooking the loops up again, pulling the window cover up like a reefed sail. I did those loops by my window. When we arrived, we took the little auto-taxis to the beginning of Ernakulam's pretty waterfront promenade, where Sudha had hoped to catch the ferry back to Fort Cochin, but that ferry wasn't running, so after a short stroll on the promenade,
Since the optional sunset cruise with Kathakali dance performance had fallen through due to lack of interest (which ticked Mary Joy off,because she had been looking forward to it), we decided to go to the 5:30 English-language mass at Santa Cruz Cathedral, as shown on a sign outside the church. However, since this was All Saints Day, the schedule was changed. Instead, we joined a procession to the cemetery chapel (a couple of men told us that it was one kilometer away, but we later figured from the street signs that it was actually two kilometers. We marched along,double-file, umbrellas out against a light rain, behind a group of women (nuns?) in salmon-colored saris. Ahead, they were praying the rosary in Malayalam (the local language). Some women next to us were saying it in accented English (it wasn't clear where in Asia they were from, but they didn't appear to be local). When Mary Joy joined in, they had her lead their prayer for one decade (not ten years, but one unit of the rosary: an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be to the Father).
After about half an hour of walking on the edge of the street, against the traffic, which was still hurtling by, as fast as it could go, we arrived at the cemetery chapel. It was full, so we stood out on the porch in front. Unlike masses for Indians in Minnesota, this was not a Syro-Malabar Rite mass, which tends to run for two hours, this was a Latin-Rite mass, exactly like ours, only in Malayalam. Mary Joy liked the music, though it was heavily miked and, along with
the violins, snare drum and one male and one female singer, the ensemble included a synthesizer. The homily was impassioned, and I figured that the priest was a good speaker, though I couldn't understand a word. The Kiss of Peace, which in the U.S. Is a Handshake of Peace, in Kochi is a Bow of Peace, with your hands folded as if in prayer--in other words, the standard Indian greeting pose that in the North is associated with saying "Namaste," but with a deeper bow. Communion is in the mouth, not in the hand.
Immediately after mass, there were prayers associated with a list of names, presumably the parishioners who had died during the past year. After that, things continued, but we decided to leave. We started walking the way we had come, but after a lengthy walk we saw a tuk-tuk stop across the street from us, so we went over and asked him to take us to the Malabar House hotel. I asked him what that would cost, in reply, he asked what I would offer. "Fifty rupees?" I asked--that was the cost of most short tuk-tuk rides we had taken (about 75 cents). He agreed, and we drove off to the Malabar House. The driver asked if he should wait, but we weren't sure when we'd be done eating, so we said no.
But the Malabar Junction restaurant was full and we didn't want to wait 45 minutes for a table, so we looked in Lonely Planet. That guide had two starred restaurants, Malabar Junction and Dal Roti. I had read that the latter was closed on Sundays, so we settled on Casa Linda and went outside. The same tuk-tuk was there, and when I asked the driver what it would cost to go to Casa Linda, he gave me the same answer as before, so I gave him the same reply, and we were off. While driving, he said that there was a very good restaurant nearby, Dal Roti. I replied that our guidebook said that it was closed on Sunday's, but he said that our guidebook was wrong. So we drove to Dal Roti and, sure enough, it was open,and had a two-person table available right out front, in a sort of enclosed entryway. The driver said that he could be back an hour later, and gave us his card, in case we finished earlier and wanted to call him.
It was a North Indian restaurant, with a very different vibe from the very elegant Malabar Junction--sort of backpacker-meets-the-Middle-East. At first, Mary Joy was disappointed. This was not the style or type of restaurant that she had wanted for her birthday dinner. At first we were going to order a chicken biryani apiece, but the woman who took our order--she may have been the owner's wife--said that that would probably be too much, and that it might be better to order one, split it and add something else. Mary Joy was considering dal (a lentil dish), but the woman said that that wouldn't work with the biryani, and suggested splitting a chicken kati roll instead. We were very pleased with the results,and could see how the restaurant was so highly praised by both Lonely Planet and Tripadvisor. The total price, including a mango lassi and a bottle of water, was 350 rupees (about $5.25), to which we added a 40 rupee tip. When we finished, the tuk-tuk was waiting. As we rode back to the hotel, the driver told us odds and ends about Kochi, hoping, I think, to be employed to tour the town, but Mary Joy had to tell him that we would be leaving Kochi at 5:30 the next morning. I paid him a hundred rupees, instead of our usual fifty, but I have trouble feeling particularly virtuous about paying someone $1.50 instead of 75 cents.
No comments:
Post a Comment