10/25/10 Fort Cochin Jew Town and Cherai Beach

I must say that Fort Cochin is a world away from the rest of India.  Although touristy, its got an indelible charm about it.  There's significantly less trash than any of the cities I've visited thus far, far fewer traffic with less pollution, and the mix of British, Portuguese and Dutch architecture makes for a rather quaint town. 

Having had a tasty Keralan breakfast this morning at the homestay, Sam and I agree to venture out to Jew Town to have a look.  To give a brief history of Sam, he's a 6'4" Jew on a business trip to Bangalore where he is literally training his replacements.  Having finished up early, he decided to visit the Kerala region of India.  Sam possesses a very easy going attitude and has proven to be a fun companion through our days here in Fort Cochin. 

The highlight of Jew Town is the very modest Pardesi Synagogue originally built in 1568.  After a brief run through, Sam and I catch a rickshaw to Cherai Beach an hour north of our current location.  I'm not expecting much at this point considering it received a one sentence mention in the LP.  But you never know!  Sometimes taking the road less traveled yields unexpected treasures as evidenced in Munnar.

So with myself and the 6'4" Sam in the back of the rickshaw, we head out to "discover" Cherai Beach.  On the way we board a ferry while in our rickshaw to take us to the north side of the lake.  Bumping along rocky, pot hole ridden roads, the surrounding trees suddenly opens up to an narrow but expansive beach.  It must have been a mile long.  I notice several things on arrival.  There's barely any trash in sight!  There's hardly anyone here!  It's a nice sunny day!  This is sweet!  I roll up my pants and I make my way to the water.  Feeling the warm Indian Ocean swirling around my feet made the hour long rickshaw ride well worth it.  Sam joined moments later and we both remarked with positive enthusiasm at how great a find this was. 

Now only if only there were beach chairs with beach umbrellas and a bucket of beers, we would be set to laze the day away.  Not finding this we spend the next 2 hours "chilling", I with a coconut and Sam with his drumstick ice cream.

Arriving back at Saj's, we both clean up a bit and head out for some dinner and another round of beers.  As this was the day of elections, the ban on serving alcohol was lifted at 5pm.  We decide to find a properly served beer out of a bottle instead of the "tea" mugs from the past two nights.  We find a new spot and with a beer in hand we make a toast.  Yuck!  Usually Kingfisher is a great lager but they served it to us slightly chilled or slightly warm, whichever way you look at it.  To be fair the waiter did tell us it was "medium cold".  Yeah right!  After only one beer, Sam and I head back to our rooms to call it a night.