Kochin: City Tour

Today being Friday, the Dutch palace and the Synagogue were closed. I saw the Dutch cemetary (1724), Fort Cochin (where the giant Chinese nets are located), the Santa Cruz Bazilica (originally built 1506) with pastel colored murals from the renovations in the early 20th c, and St Francis church built 1503, where Vasco de Gama was buried in 1524 for 14 years or so before his remains were returned to Lisbon. I've seen the newer grave but it was before I did my travel blog :-)

At lunch I had a simple grilled fish with a ton of garlic, and some garlic naan.

In the afternoon, we went to visit the Hill palace, where the last Raj of Kochin used to live prior to unification. His forefather had received a golden crown from Vasco de Gama 5 centuries ago. Another impressive object was the thrown which is in silver. There are portraits of the rajes, while the rest of the artefacts are from the archaeological society which currently runs the buildings. Most interesting for me were the early stone carvings showing Malayalam script's early versions and several manuscripts of important books such as the ramayana and the Mahabarata, ayurveda treaties.

After a bit of shopping to get some spices, I had dinner and went to the train station for a 12 hour (overnight) ride to Chennai (Madras).