Christmas in Kerala

After more than 6 months in India, we finally left the state of Karnataka, and took a Christmas trip to our neighboring Southern state, Kerala. A popular tourist destination because of it's beaches,backwaters,and coconut-rich cuisine, Kerala is also run by a democratically-elected Communist government. It boasts the highest literacy rate in India, and paved roads! We found it to be the cleanest place in India that we have visited yet, and although poverty is unavoidable in this country, there was a noticeable dearth of beggars and emaciated stray animals, which is certainly not the case here in Bangalore. Speaking of animals, I was especially excited about the number of cats that live in Kerala! The availability of fresh seafood keeps the strays looking much healthier than the few I have seen here at home (present company excluded).

I already had a three-day weekend, but I only wanted to take one additional day off from work (saving those vacation days for visitors and my trip home), so we decided to stay in one area of Kerala, rather than exploring the father regions and the very bottom of the country. We chose Cochin because it is relatively close (a 12-hour bus ride),and has a small Jewish area with the oldest of the few synagogues here in India.

We stayed on Vypin Island, at a little beach resort, and took the ferry over to Fort Cochin to visit Jew Town and get Tim some fresh seafood. Tim has basically become a vegetarian, since he has gotten sick the few times that he's tried to eat meat or seafood in Bangalore (lack of highways means fish sits on the back of a truck for hours, and meat hangs unrefrigerated from dusty road stalls - kind of gross), so freshly caught and prepared fish was quite a treat.

We had a pretty perfect vacation - a mix of relaxing on the beach and exploring the town and old buildings. At one point, we wandered away from touristy Jew Town and into a residential area full of children playing. They were excited to see us, and begged me to take their pictures and then show them the images on my digital camera. I was really happy to have the opportunity to take the kinds of photos I always pussy out on, without feeling like a creepy perv or a bourgeois whitey tourist.

Some pics below. You can view the entire album here.