After two weeks of travelling entirely at my own pace I have mixed feelings about joining up with a group, so I’m relieved to be allotted my own room for the first night at Kaleeveedu Lodge. The lodge has about 8 rooms, including the sleepout that I’m in, each with its own bathroom, and is surrounded by lawns studded with an eccentric assortment of garden ornaments, a huge mango tree that is beginning to bear small green fruit, and a pond where a couple of white ducks are doing their best to swim in the two inches of mosquito larvae-laden puddle at the bottom. The rooms are clean and tidy, there are mosquito screens, the hot water works and there is actual toilet paper – what more could a girl ask for. I’ve been on a few trips with Intrepid Travel, but this is the first time I’ve come across accommodation that is run directly by Intrepid itself. It might even be the only one, but with new trips starting and finishing weekly in Fort Kochi, and the relatively low cost of a lease, it makes sense to have a permanent base. It also means that I can cull a few more items from my pack and leave them safely in storage for the next two weeks – I swear I have a good reason for everything I have brought with me, and it’s all going to be useful – but there MUST be a way to travel with less. The sooner someone comes up with a common charger for all of my electronic devices (without all the different fiddly cords and connections), the better.

The trip kicks off with a meeting at 6p.m. sharp. We are a full complement of twelve, from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, the UK and even a token American, all the way from Boston. The age range is from early twenties to early seventies, with just two couples in the group. It’s going to be interesting to see how we all get along! Our guide is the delightful Charles, a Madurai native (we’re going to be visiting his home town in a few days) with a keen sense of humour, a love of food and a genuine pride in showing us around “his India”.

We head out for dinner at a tourist dive (which has the single advantage that it also serves beer, not as easy to track down as you might think), then it’s back to the lodge for more beer and a bottle of the local rum (which, I seem to recall, was actually pretty good), and a surprise birthday cake for one member of the group. It’s fair to say that some of us are looking a little sleepy the next morning at breakfast.

The day starts with a walking tour of Fort Kochi, retracing my footsteps from yesterday. At the fish market, a huge mess of eels is being packaged into crates and covered in ice for shipping.

We pass the local trade union office and arrive at the ferry terminal, where Charles has a word with the crew and we are first to board the old wooden ferry, for a sea-level view of the city.

Workers of the world…

Men in wooden canoes piled with fishing nets skim past, narrowly avoiding larger vessels (even a huge, slightly decrepit-looking cruise liner). In the distance we can see the tower blocks of Ernakulam, but after a brief stop the ferry crosses back to Fort and we follow the stream of old grandpa bicycles off the ferry at Mattancherry, to visit the “Dutch” palace.

No photos are allowed inside the palace, ostensibly to protect the vegetable dyes used in the ancient wall murals (other places just forbid flash photography, but maybe the temptation to flick on the flash has proved too much for some, so a complete photography ban has been imposed). The murals are impressive though, depicting mostly religious scenes – Krishna is a favourite subject.

Entry to the Dutch Palace

The rest of the palace is old, wooden and dark, with some fairly staid exhibits, but the history of the local aristocracy is an interesting one, quite different to the Northern states – and to the rest of India, as far as I can tell – in that the line of inheritance is matrilineal, so that the mother of the ruler becomes hugely important. There are a series of black and white portraits of the former royal family in both Western and traditional dress, including some slightly spooky baby photos.

One room is full of weapons – it turns out there is also a traditional form of martial art unique to Kerala, known as kalaripayattu. I had been laughing a couple of days earlier at a letterbox nameplate under the name “Panicker”, but apparently a kalari panicker is just someone who teaches kalaripayattu. It would be good to see kalaripayattu in action before I leave Kerala, though some of the weapons look pretty fierce.

When I emerge from the palace, there is a small scrum of people around the American member of the group. He’s brought a small cache of family photos with him, which are proving to be a great hit. Note to self for next time…

We jump into rickshaws for the short journey back as far as Bastion Street, and find a table at the back of the garden in Kashi Art Cafe. Set in a quiet lane, the cafe is reached through a quirky art gallery, and serves espresso made in stovetop pots, fresh salads washed in filtered water (I have been dreaming about salads for at least a week now), and homemade chocolate cake to die for. Heaven.

The rest of the afternoon is free, and I’m determined to track down a 3G sim for my iPad before we leave. I tried yesterday, but forgot to take a passport photo and a copy of my Indian visa. This time I have all of the necessary paperwork, but I don’t know how to activate the sim, and my iPad is stowed safely at the lodge. The thought of walking all the way to the lodge and back is too much, but the boy behind the counter is horrified that I would consider paying as much as 50 rupees for an autorickshaw, and volunteers the use of a friend’s motorbike. After extracting a promise to drive carefully, I am treated to my first ever ride on the back of a bike (though I draw the line at riding sidesaddle). Even at slow speeds (the driver is true to his word) I can see how this could become addictive, and it’s almost worth it just for the look of surprise on the face of the lodge manager when we pull in!

At long last the sim is activated (pretty sure they just wanted an excuse to play with the iPad…), and I head back to meet the rest of the group at the lodge. On the way, I pass a community hall with colourful banners outside – it’s an exhibition by the Handmade Collective, a non-profit organisation providing support to artisan craftspeople throughout India. Stalls have been set up around the edge of the hall, and in the garden cafe behind, selling clothing, toys, paintings, handmade paper and homemade herbal remedies. I buy a handprinted dress marked at 700INR from a trio who spent 30 hours on a train from North India to get to Fort Kochi for this three day event. More expensive than the local tourist markets, but at least a little closer to a fair price. In the next room a woman is selling scarves and saris made from Ahimsa silk. Ahimsa is the principle of non-violence, and the weavers are careful to leave enough silk on each cocoon so that the silkworm inside is unharmed. It is nearly the end of the final day, so she has dropped her prices and gives me a further discount on a block-printed cotton salwar kameez set. Clearly I don’t look like I know what to do with it, so she writes careful instructions on each piece for delivery to the tailor, labelling the salwar, kameez and dupatta fabric in case I mix them up.

Ahimsa silk

Walking back across the park, I dodge a women’s softball team mid-practice. Marquees are being erected for the Colonial hockey tournament the next day. In the distance I can hear drumming, and two streets away I stumble across a small stage with rows of chairs set up in the middle of a large park. A group of twenty men in sarongs are playing for an audience of three or four tourists and a couple of children, so I perch on a seat in the back row for a while to listen.

This evening’s programme includes a kathakali performance at a neighbourhood theatre, and one last dinner at the fabulous Oceanus (I don’t know what goes into a Syrian Catholic Fish Curry, apart from the obvious, but I can report that it is spicy and delicious). Tomorrow there is an early start tomorrow as we head for the hills of Ooty.

Syrian Catholic Curry and “pregnant pancakes” (aka appam). No connection.