A Walk in Fort Kochi, Kerala, Kochi, India

On a chilly January day in London I am inevitably dreaming of warmer climes. A place where the sun is shining; where a stroll through city streets delivers colour, warmth, a bit of excitement and a lot of interest.

Fort Kochi is the old part of Cochin in Kerala and has many of the city’s most interesting sights. We spent a day exploring with a local guide, Mary. I already described, in a previous post, the dhobi khana (public laundry facility) that we visited with her. Now I’d like to show you some of the other sights in the city. So join me please on a pleasant, sunny and belated Monday Walk.

We started out at the first Christian church to be built in India. It is famous as the burial place of Vasco de Gama. However, his body only lay here for 14 years before being moved to the Jerónimos Monastery in Belem, near Lisbon. His tomb can still be seen in this church; it is a very simple and worn stone set in the floor on the right-hand side.

More interesting to look at are the wall-mounted gravestones, Dutch on the right-hand side, Portuguese on the left. These give a clue to the varied history of this church.

Contrary to what you might think, Mary told us, it was not the Portuguese who brought Christianity to this part of the world. Tradition holds that the first to convert people here was the apostle Thomas, who came to this coast just 29 years or so after the death of Christ. He brought the new religion to the educated upper classes; but it was the Portuguese, several hundred years later, who converted the lower caste groups. Perhaps these were the most receptive at that time, keen to shake off the traditions of the by-then prevalent Hinduism which dictated their lowly position in society. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).