Thursday, July 16, 2009

Sights and sounds of cochin

This being the monsoon season, the skies were overcast and grey most of the time but I managed to visit a few places when it wasnt raining. The face of the city is changing because of all the construction going on. Pretty soon its gonna turn into a concrete jungle like Bombay or Dubai which is sad.

click on the pictures to view in larger size

View from my wife's apartment

Mattanchery and Fort Cochin
You can read about my previous visit to Fort Cochin here link

Santa Cruze Bascilica
This is and old town with a lot of history and some really old churches. First stop was Santa Cruze Bascilica. The Bascilica has a lot of art work on the ceiling much like the Sistine Chapel. There are lots of textures and colors which makes this a good opportunity to take an HDR shot.. so I did !

St. Francis Church
This church was made by the Portugese in 1516 and was the original resting place of explorer Vasco da Gama. His remains were later moved to Lisbon in his home country.

Jew town and Jew street
This was one of the oldest Jewsish settlements in India and is place to the oldest existing Synagoge in the Commonwealth. It was built in 1568 and is maintained by the few remaining Jews in Cochin. There was an older Synagoge in Kochangadi, built in 1344 but it no longer exists. Photography is strictly prohibited. All along Jew street there are many antique shops and handicraft workshops.


Lagoons and backwaters
I took a couple of shots of a fishing boat leaving the shores of the lagoon. This was a single RAW file then made into an HDR image.

Syrian Orthodox wedding
I was lucky enough to attend a cousins wedding while I was in Cochin. Had a good time catching up with relatives.

Kerala Breakfast
Puttu and Kadala (steamed rice cakes with brown chickpeas)

Idiyappam and Motta curry (rice hoppers and egg curry)

4 comments:

Grey said...

Awesome pictures...God's own country ... I think he took extra time while making it :)

Name is Bond said...

God's own country!

@times Devils own people!!!

Still......I miss Cochin(Kochi) my home town....

Mathai said...

Grey: Yeah its an awesome place ! but God didnt spend any extra time with the people ! :P

Name is Bond: correct !

Anonymous said...

Kochi ain't what it used to be - traffic is a killer.. ..parking is nightmare. I get panic attacks watching the red buses ply Edapally-Kaloor... and then Chennai Silks decided to add to the mess!
Now we wait for work on the Metro to start !

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