31-12-2014
1976 KM
Bright sunny day, Cherai Beach view and premium beer made a perfect ambiance to relax and write down our experience earlier today. Of course we did not have to stand in a queue to buy beer this time.
It was torture to hear the orchestra of "Kothuku" (Mosquito) for full night. As it is the last day of the year, we were in relaxing mood to wake up. It was 10 AM and we were ready to explore more about Fort Kochi, but decided to satisfy our stomach before that. At an unknown road, we found a hotel and I asked the hotel owner "Puttu Irukka" (do you have puttu), He replied "Irukku" (yes it's there), i asked again "Suda" (is it hot), and he just nodded. We were happy for finding a traditional place having hot puttu and barged in. I bet this was the worst break fast, we had in our journey till now. It was so cold, we felt he got this out from freezer. We ended up sharing only one puttu and started searching for a better break fast. It was then we realized, we were very much near to Veli junction and settled down at the same break fast place as yesterday. Though the hotel looked little modern, we got nice puttu and kadla curry.
After this nice break fast we headed towards Fort Kochi. On the way to Dutch palace, we backed up all the photos to pen drive, in an internet cafe. The Kerala police has provided software for all the Internet cafe to track the user information who ever uses the computer. Its definitely handy in case of crime, Kerala police we appreciate you for this good work. The Santa Cruz Basilica was just a few yards away and we wanted to give a try. It was quite huge church, build by Portuguese. It was decorated very well for the new year, somehow the decoration didn't give us a nice frame. We headed towards Dutch Palace. We had heard about Biennale, an art festival happening across Fort Kochi. We entered one of the art gallery and it had some amazing photographs. In one of the gallery, there was an option for public to try sketching. Satish gave a very good try. Satish's list of talents have been adding up every day. The Dutch palace wasn't that great, as it was more of a historical place. It would be a good place for a history scholar. As photography wasn't allowed, we quickly completed and started hunting for food.
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| Spice Market of Fort Kochi |
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| Spice Market of Fort Kochi |
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| At Spice Market of Fort Kochi |
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| At Spice Market of Fort Kochi |
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| At Biennale |
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| Satish throwing his imagination |
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| One more hidden talent of Satish |
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| Radio |
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| War destroyed the generation |
Again a disaster lunch. The Kamath Hotel tag gave us some confidence, but no!!! we were wrong. After the quick lunch, we decided to head towards Cherai beach as we heard a lot about this place. It was with motorcycle, we reached Vypin Island taking one of the ferry to head towards Cherai Beach. It was a very narrow road with lot of traffic, which we never felt as national highway. With the boring journey, we missed the entry point of Cherai Beach and headed further. With some local enquiry, we reached back Cherai beach taking one of the inner route.
Though there were so many people playing in the beach, we did not get in to the water because of the photography gear, we were carrying. While walking with munching our favorite peanuts along the beach, we found this pretty nice restaurant, which also serves beer. We made a halt to kill some time for the Gaja Mela (Elephant Fest) and Sunset.
By the time we had gulped bottles of beer, we came to know that elephants had arrived and we quickly rushed to the spot. We were late by few minutes and the place was already crowded.There were eight elephants dressed up traditionally and now it was time for our camera. We quickly captured some of the good moments. Satish went to the beach side for Sunset frame. Since it was cloudy, he was disappointed. We returned back by the same national highway to reach Fort Kochi for the new year celebration. The journey back was little hectic with too much of traffic.
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
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| Gaja Mela, Cherai Beach |
"Arrey, what happened here, there seems to be huge crowd, lets go help if we can" before Satish completed his sentence, I stopped him and said "Govt Liqour Store" and it was people waiting to buy some thing for their new year celebration. After seeing this crowd, we dropped the plan of having beer for the new year eve. After reaching Kochi we got freshen up and started exploring different new year events in the city. There were so many peace marches, which happened in front of our guest house. Kochi is the best place to celebrate new year. Its not like nuclear family, where each of them celebrate new year by their own. Its the complete city, which celebrates the new year. The complete city is decorated. Awesome. We liked the DJ in side the boat and the traditional folk songs being performed live at the beach ground.
After few spin around the beach area, we reached our guest house. It is not 12 yet, but I think we are done with the day. Wish you a very happy new year in advance.
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