The Land of Coconuts

Greetings from Kochi, the city formally known as Cochin. As our flight was landing, all you could see for miles & miles were rows & rows of Palm Trees. Later we were informed that they were Coconut Trees. I'm not sure what the exact difference is?

Turns out there was a dignatory or minister arriving at the same time, and there was a huge arrival party waiting at the airport, complete with a band. They were playing drums and blowing horns constantly, it was very festive. (see horns below - the are so thin but made a huge sound)


Were greeted by Father Joe - and after giving me a hug, the first thing he said (jokingly) was "Do you like the band I arranged for you!" I thanked him for arranging the band & picking us up and then we jumped in the car and drove back to the Monastery.

On arrival he gave us the grand tour, including the absolutely beautiful Chapel that he was in charge of building. I plan on taking some nice (artsy) pictures during morning mass on Ash Wednesday. Katie went to mass on the first morning at 6:45AM, but that was just a little too early for me on Day 1.

The grounds of the monastery have a ton of coconut trees, banana trees and a huge mango tree. The coconut tree used to produce so many coconuts that they had extra to sell. Now the number of people here has grown large enough, that they are consumed on site. The banana tree has clumps of mini bananas, that are so delicious and sweet. I wanted to eat 10 of them for breakfast, but limited myself to 2. The mango tree has dozens of mangoes on it, but they arent ripe yet.

Father Joe has been an AWESOME host. He has taken us around town and given us a glimpse into how the locals live. We have taken auto rickshaws (aka autos, 3 wheelers, tuck tucks) around everywhere. We even hoped on a city bus for a bit and took commuter ferry across the bay.

And it's amazing wherever we go, everyone knows him. From young people to old people. From restaurant and hotel owners, to waiters, cab drivers, shop keepers, vendors and fisherman. A man on a motorcycle stopped driving, pulled over, and took off his helmet to say hi to him and shake his hand. It's absolutely incredible. There are about 1.5 million people in Kochi, and it has only taken him 15 years to know all of them! And they genuinely care about him and were all very eager to meet us.

We've seen a nice mix of sites and local life. We've also had some pretty nice meals. All the dishes here are made with coconut. I had this great lentil pumpkin coconut for dinner the 1st night. I think it might be my new favorite food. I'm going to have to try and replicate it when I get home. We also tried banana pie, cinnamon ice cream and coconut ice cream. Seriously, I think I'm going to for coconut in my omelet tomorrow morning. It's everywhere!


Editorial Note: The pictures provided in this post are courtesy of Google Images. We haven't really had time to upload any pictures, but still wanted to provide some visuals. I'll make sure to get some of our pictures up here soon.