This was a short visit to Kerala in Late Feb 23rd when we were visiting dad in Bangalore. We started by taking a flight to Kochi which is a beautiful airport and quite different from other airports in India in terms of its architecture and layouts.
There we met our driver and then as soon as the drive started, the driver suggested we do a stop to do a boat ride along the local waterways. He was pretty adamant that it would be a good experience and after some persuasion, we agreed. The boat was a motor boat and the boatman took us along the waterways where we saw cormorants, fishing nets and the the mangroves
Post that we went to the forte Kochi hotel where we were staying for the night. The hotel was originally built in the 1860s and served as the palatial home of a wealthy Jewish merchant family, the Koder family, who were prominent figures in Kochi’s history.
Post grabbing some lunch we decieded to walk down to the Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica which was a couple of kilometers away and was built by the Portuguese in 1505, making it one of the first European churches in India. Remarkably, when the Dutch conquered Kochi in 1663 and destroyed most Catholic buildings, they spared this one, using it as an arms storehouse. Unfortunately it was closed and we had to be content with just looking at it from the outside.
We also walked down to the St. Francis Church which was open and is the oldest European-built church in India, originally constructed in 1503 by Portuguese Franciscan friars. The current stone structure, built in 1516 to replace an earlier wooden chapel, stands as a rare architectural witness to India’s colonial history, having transitioned from a Catholic church under the Portuguese to a Dutch Reformist house of worship in 1663, and finally an Anglican church under the British in 1804. It is most famously known as the original burial site of the legendary explorer Vasco da Gama, who died in Kochi in 1524; although his remains were later moved to Lisbon, his gravestone is still a major point of interest within its simple, sturdy walls and high-timbered ceilings.
Then we walked back to the hotel to rest and went to a nearby shop to look at some of the artefacts they had and bought a beautiful hanging for our home in woodinville. At that time, I got a rather cryptic message from my manager in the US giving me her number and telling me to call in the morning. Confused and a little worried, we went out for dinner at a momo place and when I called her, she told I had been re=orged to a new team in Microsoft and ill be hearing from my new manager soon.
So a rather interesting first day in our trip to kerala.