South India · City
Chinese nets, a Dutch palace and five centuries of harbour trade
Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0
Best: Oct–Mar
Kochi became a port by accident: the flood of 1341 silted the Periyar's old mouth and opened a natural harbour, and within two centuries Arabs, Chinese, Jews, Portuguese, Dutch and English had all set up shop on it. Fort Kochi still shows the layers. The cantilevered Chinese fishing nets on Vasco da Gama Square are lowered and hauled by teams of four men and a counterweight of stones.
St Francis Church, built in 1503, is the oldest European church in India and held Vasco da Gama's body for fourteen years before it was taken home to Lisbon. Ten minutes away in Mattancherry, the Paradesi Synagogue of 1568 has a floor of hand-painted Cantonese tiles, no two alike, and Belgian chandeliers below a clock tower added in 1760; the lane outside is antique dealers and spice godowns that still smell of ginger and pepper. Next door, the Dutch Palace holds some of the finest murals in Kerala, a Ramayana running across a bedroom wall.
Days here are slow and walkable: coffee in a homestay courtyard, the Dutch cemetery wall, a Kathakali performance you reach an hour early to watch the make-up go on, then grilled seafood chosen off the ice beside the nets. Every second winter the Kochi-Muziris Biennale fills Aspinwall House and half the neighbourhood with contemporary art.
Best Oct–Mar
October to March; the Biennale runs through winter in alternate years.
Give Kochi 2 days and it repays the time; with fewer you are choosing between Chinese fishing nets on the Fort Kochi waterfront at sunset and St Francis Church, built 1503, and Vasco da Gama's first grave. We build the hours around the weather — early starts when it is hot, long afternoons when it is not.
On the ground
The days we would actually plan for you, in the order that suits the light.
At the table
VegetarianKerala
A vegetarian feast of twenty or more dishes served on a plantain leaf in a fixed order, from pickle and pappadam at the tip to rice with parippu, sambar, avial, olan and thoran, ending in payasam. You eat with the right hand and fold the leaf towards you when done. Thrissur does it best at Onam.
VegetarianKerala
Fermented rice and coconut batter swirled in a deep appachatti so it sets lacy at the rim and spongy at the centre, served with a pale stew of vegetables or chicken in coconut milk, cinnamon, curry leaf and whole pepper. It is the Syrian Christian breakfast of Fort Kochi and the Kuttanad backwaters.
Getting there
Cochin International (COK) at Nedumbassery is 35 km from Fort Kochi; Ernakulam Junction and Ernakulam Town are the railheads, with Alappuzha 55 km south.
Airport pickups, station transfers and the driver for the days here are all part of what we arrange — including the hour you should leave, which is usually earlier than you think.
Next door
Places that join Kochi without a long drive — the way a real week is built.
BackwaterKerala
Kettuvallam nights on Vembanad and paddy below sea level
Hill stationKerala
Clipped tea hills, Nilgiri tahr and the highest peak down south
CityKerala
A hill of teak, a ring road and Kerala's loudest festival
BackwaterKerala
A heronry on Vembanad, and the village of Ayemenem next door
WildlifeKerala
A drowned valley, spice country and guides who were once poachers
2 journeys
8 days · 7 nightsEasy · Best Sep–Mar
Fort Kochi to a Vembanad houseboat, by way of the high tea country
Route: Kochi → Munnar → Thekkady & Periyar → Alleppey (Alappuzha) +1 more
21 days · 20 nightsModerate · Best Nov–Feb
Three weeks down the whole length of India, Delhi to Chennai
Route: Delhi → Agra → Jaipur → Udaipur +6 more
From the journal
· Guide · 6 min
How to book a kettuvallam without regret: which jetty to start from, what a night on board actually costs in rupees, the canals worth asking your crew for, what gets cooked on the stern, and the months when Vembanad looks its best.
Before you ask
Photograph of Kochi: Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0
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