Kathakali Drama in Kochi

We arrived to Kochi before six in the morning - quite a ride. Nowadays we are much more experienced and tougher for the locals to be taken advantage of. It was the humidity of Kochi which hit us straight in the face already at the train station, but it did not make us lose our senses; we did not fall for the more than triple price for the tuk-tuk (rickshaw taxi on 3 wheels) nor for the bluff that the ferry does not work. We nicely managed to navigate our way through the still dark city to the port to take the first ferry to Fort Kochi while the sun was rising. We settled in a Home Stay, which is a very convenient and cost efficient form of local accommodation and went to sleep to recover from the 16 hours trip. When we made our way out of bed around 4 pm we could hardly see from starvation. Missing the yesterday dinner, today breakfast and lunch, it was high time to indulge in the culinary delights of Kerala. We both felt reborn after a typical Keralan dinner - to my taste the best kitchen in India I have tasted! Not too spicy, wonderful seafood with a lot of coconut and vegetables. Should not miss the ginger soda lime and the heavenly sweets!

To complete the day we decided to go for a Kathakali theatre performance, which was quite a piece of introduction to the Indian art of non-verbal communication - impossible for us to decode the message without some help. The characters can be identified by theirs make-up, where e.g. green face represents the noble character, the red the vicious, etc. The traditional play lasts 10-12 hours, though we had only a brief 1,5 hours performance about the story how Kari, the demoness crossing the river falls in love with a handsome lad, Pacca sitting in his garden. We saw how the demoness disguised as a beautiful woman - played by a not that beautiful man - tries to infatuate the young noble man, who after discovering the carnal desire driving the woman's marriage offer slowly but surely discovers her evilness and kills her.