Cochin chimmery chim chim, chim chim chiree

Arrived last night in Cochin/Kochi to discover that a French woman I shared lunch with in Hampi is staying at the same guest house! When we parted ways last week she said "Maybe I'll see you in Kerala," and I thought, shya, fat chance. But there she was! Seems that there are more tourists here than I've seen in a week. It was already after dark when I arrived, so we talked with the hotel owner for a while- his name is Pious, seems like a lot of pressure- and then went to dinner at another hotel restaurant around the corner in the quaint Fort Cochin area. We joined two Aussie chaps staying at our hotel as well. One is 23 and had just been traveling for the past year... I can't imagine that kind of stamina. His older brother has Devo-esque glasses, silver caps on a few teeth, and a mohawk. Awesome.

The guest house has simple single rooms for Rs 150- about $3.70. I decided to go for this cheaper option than the apparently nicer rooms upstairs because this week has turned out to be pretty pricey, especially with the backwaters tour. So what does one get for 150 roops? A hard cot, smelly bathroom, and a ceiling with half of the panels missing, revealing the stained foundations behind. And a few lizards here and there. But it's not as bad as that sounds... there were lizards at my family's house in Mumbai also. And this place is still better than the room in Ernakulam where I stayed after the great 30 hour epic travel journey of June 2007, at least it has a western toilet and a rooftop terrace.

This morning I set off determined to Jew it up in Jewtown. Yes, that's right. Jewtown. Allegedly, Jews arrived on the southeastern coast of India around 2000 years ago, fleeing the exile after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem. Other versions say Jews arrived in 587 BC, fleeing Nebuchadnezzer's occupation of Jerusalem, and yet another claims Jews arrived as traders from Israel in the 11th century BC. Another legend says that the last remaining Jewish prince swam to Cochin with his wife on his shoulders from another settlement farther north on the coast. Either way, as we have been wont to do, the Jews quickly became successful traders and merchants, and until the Portuguese came to do their thing in the early 1700s, they even had their own ruler. Those friendly Portuguese brought the inquisition with them and starting persecuting the Jews in Goa, so the local raja of Cochin granted them a village beside the royal palace in Mattancherry, which is now what we know as Jewtown. Apropos of my previous posts about race and caste and hierarchy, the same held true in the Jewish community. Black Jews worked as spice laborers, and they intermarried with Indians. Brown Jews are presumed to be slave converts (I don't know what that means, it's just what the guidebook says), and White Jews, also known as Pardesi Jews, were on top. Who came up with this idea?!

There still remains a synagogue and a few stars of David built into gates or window frames, but really the only marker of its past are the signs that proclaim its name. I expected that there would be signs in Hebrew for Israeli tourists like there are in Goa and elsewhere, but none of that either. Sadly, the synagogue was closed today (that's what I get for using guidebooks from 2002 and 2003, I guess), but I'll go back for Shabbat tonight and see if there's a minyan. The community has significantly dwindled over time, and I've been told by previous travelers that the remaining elder members are private and don't like to share their story so much anymore. We'll see if I can charm them a bit more.

Also closed was the Dutch Palace, which holds a museum of all sorts of archaeological stuff from the surrounding kingdoms, as well as temples only open to Hindus. So... my jaunt into Jewtown was not as successful as planned. I did get to see the Jewish cemetery from a roof viewpoint across the street- raised graves like I've never seen in a Jewish cemetery anywhere else. Unfortunately it's too far to get a look at any engravings on the tombstones. Jewtown now is full of antique shops and the typical jewelry, handicrafts, and clothes stores. Since it's the offseason, activity was low, and lots of the shopkeepers gave out plaintive cries to "come see my shop, madam, even looking only." Heaps of relics, statues, figurines, etc are displayed in windows and alleys, and I'm sure I could easily go bankrupt shopping there. And of course, there are also prolific spice and oil shops, offering all sorts of ayurvedic potions and giving off lovely smells of sandalwood and clove.

Afterwards I crossed the water on a ferry, very much like the waterbusses of Venice, and I'm now back in Ernakulam, where I bought train tickets for the next leg of the trip. Tomorrow I fly to Varanasi via Delhi, and Benji and I will reunite on Sunday (hopefully, provided his busses from Nepal work out ok), and then on the 20th we're taking an overnight train to Agra. I am so flippin excited to see these places!

Over and out, I'm Jolly Berger.