Fort Kochi isn't really a city, in fact it isn't really a fort anymore, and if it is I didn't find it. It's part of Kochi metropolis, which includes the much more densely populated Mattancherry and Ernakulam, leaving the former fort area in much the same way the greedy bastard British colonists left it back in the 1940s when they took their greedy bastard colonist asses back to where they belong, leaving behind one British asset that I can agree with: the bacon sandwich, which I ate each morning, in surprise and sunrise. The Indian army has moved into the barracks which the British occupied and aircraft carriers sit in the waters off neighbouring Willingdon Island.
Today the place has a real lived-in air about it alongside tea, rubber and spice merchants and the omnipresent happy as Larry schoolkids rushing here and there with the gay abandon and energy of youth. San Mike the homestay guy forever chatting on Skype with his daughter in Holland rented me India's most uncomfortable bicycle and I had a very mellow time cycling through the alleyways and banana plantations beneath 500 year old banyan trees, stopping to snack on onion and potato bhajis washed down with fresh fruit juice. Kochi is a city without the difficulties of most modern day cities.
Today the place has a real lived-in air about it alongside tea, rubber and spice merchants and the omnipresent happy as Larry schoolkids rushing here and there with the gay abandon and energy of youth. San Mike the homestay guy forever chatting on Skype with his daughter in Holland rented me India's most uncomfortable bicycle and I had a very mellow time cycling through the alleyways and banana plantations beneath 500 year old banyan trees, stopping to snack on onion and potato bhajis washed down with fresh fruit juice. Kochi is a city without the difficulties of most modern day cities.