Jawed Ahmed at Kancor Ingredients Limited, Cochin

Md. Jawed Ahmed, Group IT Head for Kancor Ingredients, Cochin

Md. Jawed Ahmed, Group IT Head for Kancor Ingredients, Cochin

I have been stationed here for the past few months for SAP Implementation project at Kancor Ingredients.

Jawed's Visit to Fort Kochi

  Places to visit in Cochin ( Kochi ) : An outsider's Perspective
 A common question asked by many first time visitors / tourists to Kerala is "What are the tourist places in Kochi?" or "What are the places should I visit when I am in Cochin?". There are so many places to visit in Kerala and specifically Kochi that there is no one single answer to the above question. Depending upon your time, you can spend 3 days or 3 weeks and there would still be places left to visit. But among all these, Fort Kochi stands out as a must visit place. Fort Kochi is an important place and is normally visited by all tourist

What is Fort Kochi?
 Fort Kochi is a small water-bound area near the city of Kochi. Earlier it was an important trading area due to the proximity to sea. But now in the modern age, its importance as a trading place has diminished and now its more known as a tourist attraction. It has many old buildings, Churches, Schools. The people who live there are a mix of Malayalis, Anglo-Indians, Jews. I visited Fort Kochi recently. Its quite far from the place where I am put up. I stay in Angamally and Fort Kochi is around 45 kms from here. For a change I decided to travel by Auto Rickshaw. I booked the Auto-rickshaw for a full day and asked the driver to show me around Fort Kochi. It took us around one hour to reach Fort Kochi from Angamally.

Maritime Museum

 The first place which I visited in Fort Kochi is the SNC Maritime Musuem. Its relatively new, built in 2001. It was innaugurated by Rear Admiral Kirpal Singh. The entry fees is Rs. 25. You have to shell out another Rs. 100 if you want to carry a camera inside. There are lots of things to see inside. I am not sure if they are worth clicking pics.
But since I had not clicked pics for a long time and I was really itching to photograph anything and everything so I carried the camera with me. Lots of things are there inside. They have Navy Dresses, Maps, Ship Name Plates, historical documents. There are a few life-like statues of important (from the Maritime angle !) persons too. Two or three rooms have only Relief-Paintings on the walls. Paintings of sea planes, ships, maps etc. They have a few replica models of ships constructed in high detail. What I felt was, these exhibits will hardly be interesting for a normal person, unless you take an active interest in Navy related things.

Good place to see if you have to kill time. I visited because I had travelled very far to reach that place, and it would have been a shame to return back without seeing it. Strictly for the bragging rights... My next stop was Bishop's House. And then the Chinese Fishing Nets. Near the Chinese Fishing Nets, you can see fishermen selling freshly caught fish. All you have to do is select the one that you want and they will cook and serve it to you. It seemed quite popular among the tourists. They were crowding around the shops selling fish. There is a small jetty from where boats leave for the different towns. I also saw dolphins in the water. Initially I chanced upon them and saw quite a few. But afterwards when I started looking for them, I did not find them.

Once in a while I could see their tail splashing in the sea. This particular has developed like the normal sea-beaches that one sees at other places (but there's no sea beach here). Many small shops selling the usual touristy stuff like handicrafts, hats, bottled water etc.

I also visited a disappointing place called the Dutch Palace. Its situated some 2.5 kms from the Promenade near the Chinese Fishing Nets. My expectations rose because of the name. But its a normal building with a temple on the ground floor and some 5 large rooms in the first floor. They allow visitors to go through the rooms in the first floor. The personal items of the erstwhile rulers of the Kochi are displayed here. They have a number of Royal Dolis ( hand-held carriages), Old Photographs, Weapons etc. Its small in size. So unless you take a very great interest in these things, you can be in and out of the entire building in 10 mins.

I noticed one interesting thing there. There is an old photograph of the ladies of the Royal Family. Must have been clicked around 1930. Each of the lady in the picture has been shown carrying a black umbrella. I found it quite strange. There is some fixation with Umbrellas that Malayali people have. I know British have it and to some extend the Bengali Babus have it. But now I know that even Malayalis have it. In my office, there is a convention, every year, the company gifts an umbrella to each employee. Yes, we get the normal stuff like Diwali Sweets, Christmas Cakes and New year Diaries. But seriously, Umbrellas?


While returning through an area called Panampilly Nagar, we stopped to have lunch at Itty's Cafe. They served the normal Kerala Meals. It was good. The place was clean and hygenic. They served us on Banana leaf. After walking around for close to 2 hours I had built up quite an apettite and they served good food. I had a sumptous lunch and then started back for Angamally.