{"id":380,"date":"2014-08-20T22:49:18","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T12:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/?p=380"},"modified":"2014-08-20T22:49:18","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T12:49:18","slug":"day-trip-into-fort-kochi-stop-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/?p=380","title":{"rendered":"Day trip into Fort Kochi – Stop ONE"},"content":{"rendered":"

We decided that we were going to catch a rickshaw and travel the 24 km down the island<\/p>\n

\"Elephant<\/a>
Elephant walk \ud83d\ude42<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

and then catch a ferry over to Fort Kochi. \u00a0The ride cost 400 rupees ($8) and would take about 45-55 minutes. \u00a0We only got down the road a few kilometers when our auto came to a screeching halt… a man on bicycle turned right out in front of the\u00a0motorcycle right in front of us. \u00a0Jamie saw the accident happen right before us…I didn’t as I was too busy taking pictures of the elephant right beside us. \u00a0No one was hurt, thank goodness, as I remembered an accident I saw in India last time – between a bicycle and a motorbike; that time the man on the bicycle didn’t make it! \u00a0Once we saw that everyone was ok (except the tire & rim on the bicycle), we continued our way. \u00a0The travel did take about 55 minutes to the ferry, where we purchased a ticket and made the 6 minute trip across the water to Fort Kochi.<\/p>\n

Fort Kochi<\/span>\u00a0is the first European township in India. Some of the oldest buildings in the country are located here. Here is the summary from Wikipedia….<\/span><\/p>\n

“Kochi was a fishing village in the\u00a0Kingdom of Kochi<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the pre-colonial Kerala. The territory that would be later known as Fort Kochi was granted to the\u00a0Portuguese<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in 1503 by the\u00a0Rajah of Kochi<\/span><\/a>, after the forces of\u00a0Afonso de Albuquerque<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>helped him fighting the forces of\u00a0Saamoothiri<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0Kozhikode<\/span><\/a>. The Rajah also gave them permission to build\u00a0Fort Emmanuel<\/span><\/a>\u00a0near the waterfront to protect their commercial interests. The first part of the name Fort Kochi comes from this fort, which the Dutch later destroyed. The Portuguese built their settlement behind the fort, including a wooden church, which was rebuilt in 1516 as a permanent structure, today known as the\u00a0St Francis Church<\/span><\/a>. Fort Kochi remained in Portuguese possession for 160 years. In 1683 the Dutch captured the territory from the Portuguese, destroyed many Portuguese institutions, particularly\u00a0Catholic<\/span><\/a>\u00a0including convents. The Dutch held Fort Kochi in their possession for 112 years until 1795, when the British took control by defeating the Dutch. Foreign control of Fort Kochi ended in 1947 with the\u00a0Indian independence<\/span><\/a>.” –\u00a0http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fort_Kochi<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Paradesi<\/a>
Paradesi Synagogue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our first place to stop was Jew Town to see the\u00a0Synagogue. \u00a0The\u00a0Paradesi Synagogue <\/b>was constructed in 1567 and<\/b>\u00a0is the oldest active\u00a0synagogue<\/span><\/span>\u00a0in the\u00a0Commonwealth of Nations.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0The Malabari Jews (also known as\u00a0<\/span>Cochin Jews<\/span>) formed a prosperous trading community of Kerala, and they controlled a major portion of world wide\u00a0<\/span>spice trade. \u00a0Unfortunately no photos could be taken inside the synagogue, but it was amazing to walk through the small place and see the very old benches and other Jewish pieces. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0We continued to walk through the small area known as<\/span>\u00a0Jew Town\u00a0which continues to be the\u00a0center of Kochi spice trade. \u00a0On every corner you can see a shop with bags and bags of spices. \u00a0You walk into a store and the air is filled with\u00a0aromas of ginger, cardamom, cumin, turmeric, pepper and cloves and more. I wanted to purchase some of everything just knowing it was fresh and grown right here in India.<\/p>\n

\"Spices\"<\/a>
Spices<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We decided that we’d just get Jamie some fresh pepper and continue making our way through the MANY antique stores in the area. \u00a0If only we had an EASY way to get this stuff back to Canada! \u00a0Of course all the shop owners said they could ship (didn’t even ask about that price). \u00a0Once we finished looking and making our few purchases, it was off to Princess Street for a bite to eat.
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\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We decided that we were going to catch a rickshaw and travel the 24 km down the island and then catch a ferry over to Fort Kochi. \u00a0The ride cost 400 rupees ($8) and would take about 45-55 minutes. \u00a0We only got down the road a few kilometers when our auto came to a screeching … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Day trip into Fort Kochi – Stop ONE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":384,"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lairds.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}