Thursday, December 14, 2017

Kerala

We have spent the past few days in Kerala staying in Cochin. On the way we went on very winding roads and down from 2,000 metres to sea level. We had crossed India and reached The Bay of Bengal.
On the way we broke the journey to watch tea pickers, purchase tea, visit a church and look at a rubber plantation. With the stops and refreshments along the way we made it to Cochin.


                                                                      Tea plantation.

That night we attended a demonstration and performance of Kathakali at the Cochin Cultural Centre. We watched the application of make up followed by a demonstration of Nava Rasa or the nine expressions. Students study for many years to master the art. It is performed by an all male cast using the eyes, face neck and hands. There are no spoken parts. We were given details of the scene and loved the performance.


                                                     Application of make up.


                                                         The Nava Rasa demonstration.


                                                        Scene from the performance
                                                         You should see the videos!


                                                                      Curtain call.

We spent a day looking around the city of Cochin. Highlights included The Dutch Palace...built by the Portuegese, The church where Vasco Da Garma was buried...before being dug up and removed to Lisbon, The oldest Synagogue in India, Chinese fishing nets with methods introduced by Ghengis Khan, The Basilica and the local laundry! One highlight was a cooking demonstration and lunch presented by Nimmy an Indian chef. Good meal.


 Gail and Rob at the Dhobi Khann, established in 1720 for the washing of the Dutch military uniforms. We should have taken along our dirty clothes!

On our final full day we drove to the Kerala Back Water to Aleppazha and went for a long trip on the waterways. It was a relaxing day with friends with lunch being served along the way. We had one short stop to buy "toddy" We shared it around!






                                            A pleasant relaxing final day.

We had a great final dinner at Vivanta, A Taj hotel. Pure class!
We fly out tomorrow at about 11.00pm so packing and possibly a little shopping before the two hour trip to the airport.

1 comment:

Miss Di said...

Wow, that make up is fantastic.
And the river trip looked very pleasant.