India Day 3: Yoga, the water metro and a cookery class
Alarm woke us up at 5:30 for an early yoga class booked through Joseph. Sona was a great Indian yoga teacher who had me in my first ever headstand. My body was so well warmed up that it seemed easier than in Devon.
A 25 minute cruise later through the main waterways of Kochi and we made landfall at High Court, an area of Kochi famous for the Court building. We ignore this and strolled down the 'Marine Drive Walkway', a pedestrian only footpath with intermittent shade and viewing platforms of the Kochi seascape. Took about an hour to the end and back, felt pretty safe all the time even though we were the only western tourists around and we got back to the terminal for the return. Again, able to buy tickets from an English speaking person and told where to sit in line to wait as here there were more than one possible ferry route available.
The ferry this time called ar Vypin first, the 'island' opposite Fort Kochi, so we stayed on to get back to our neighbourhood.
Once back we tried to go back to our cafe from yesterday, Qissa, but it was closed so tried another from Google with good reviews, The Grand Upstairs...closed too! So we tried Kashi Art cafe which was fabulous. Had a younger vibe than Qissa but the atmosphere was still quite laid back and the pint of sweet berry lemonade was the best thing I've drank in a long time. The grilled cheese and tomato sandwich was good too and slightly better than the one at Qissa. A bit more expensive though, around 800 rupees all in but still very cheap by western standards.
After a snooze back at the B&B we had another wander past the fishing nets and found another cafe, this time for cake. Pandhal Cafe and Deli was set in a lovely lush garden and the cake choice was excellent. The mint lime grantina was a bit gloomy though and the chai that Becs had not as good as other cafes.
Headed back along the coast path and did some gift shopping for the kids back home who were looking after our cat with the help of their respective adults. Lots of choice if you like Indian clothes and small wooden elephants.
At 6pm we turned up at the house of our cookery class teacher. For 1000 rupees each we got to watch and participate in making 4 different vegetarian curries and coconut rice. There were 5 of us in the class altogether, which took place in Meera the teachers kitchen and we got to eat the food we made afterwards.
This was a really terrific experience. Metro had prepared all of the ingredients and printed out recipes on A4 paper that we could annotate as she went along. I got to help with the vegetable curry and Becs with the vegetarian masala. The whole class was in English and we had a lovely chat with the others in the group at the end as we ate the food. Top marks Meera!
The whole thing lasted 2.5 hours and we gad a lovely walk back to the B&B after via a shop or two.
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