The not so familar... in Fort Kochi

I thought I wouldn’t feel like a real tourist until getting to Vietnam, where my physical appearance and zero ability to speak, or more importantly, understand the language would kind of be a give away. In India and Nepal my name and skin colour have confused natives (who first see my Western clothes and my Western husband) just enough to get by without getting ripped off.

So imagine my surprise when I arrived in the South Indian state of Kerala and was greeted with blank faces when trying to converse with locals in Hindi. I quickly became aware that if you couldn’t speak the local language, Malayalam, you’d have to admit you weren’t from down South and speak English. I wouldn’t have to wait until reaching the Far East to know what it might be like to walk in Isma’s flip flops. Both of us could now be described using that dirty “F” word… foreigners.

Luckily for us, being a foreigner in the island of Fort Kochi isn’t such a big deal. With various migrant communities settling here over the years, locals are used to tourists, and don’t try and cheat you for money (or at least it's not obvious if they do). The only time I felt I’d ‘been had’ was when the ferry ticket officer gave me a British ten pence coin instead of two rupees, which I obviously can’t complain about!

Kerala, also referred to as God’s own country - as stated below every street sign just in case you weren’t already aware, is the state in which the city of Kochi or Cochin, floats. It is made up of islands including Fort Kochi: a hot and humid port town where local graffiti art and remnants of India’s first Biennale* are just as common as hairy coconuts and moustachioed men. I think it's the unexpected collage of contemporary culture pasted over a conservative canvas that gives this south Indian region a distinct, trendy feel.

With an estimated 35% of Kochi’s population being Christian, it’s quite normal to come across colourful shrines of Jesus Christ in shops, houses and even street corners, although expect a more blue-eyed, blonder version than the one back in Europe. But seeing Jesus adorned in fairy lights and flowers was just the beginning of my personal, European picture of Catholicism being washed and painted over. Never before had I associated women in sparkling Indian attire parading down the street to the sound of Indian drums with the opening of a new church. Nor would I have guessed that a bride getting married in the Santa Cruz Basilica would be wearing a white, lacy sari. Of course, culture, religion and regional tradition are not one and the same thing, but sometimes I think we forget this, preferring to blend them together to paint a picture that’s familiar and comfortable.

So, why do they call Kerala God’s own country? Well, we found out when we took a boat trip along Kerala’s Backwaters, a labyrinth of clean, tranquil lagoons and lakes running parallel to the Arabian Sea, surrounded by a jungle that is home to wild fruit and wild birds, with so many shades of green it’s humanly impossible to describe them. This region is a poster for pantheism, and if God exists in nature, this is most definitely where he lives.

*A Biennale is an International exhibition of contemporary art held every other year. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012 attracted 150,000 visitors in its first month and 250,000 visitors in its second and was described by the Tate Modern as the best Biennale yet.

Guess what I found out in Kochi?

1. Constructed in 1568, the town's Pardesi Synagogue was the first to be built in India.

2. The Chinese fishing nets or Cheena Vala in Kochi apparently can’t be found anywhere else but China! There are different versions of how they ended up here, but recent research suggests that Portuguese settlers from Macau brought them here.

3. Kerala is the state in India with the highest rate of literacy at 95.5%.