We left our quiet forest in the jeep, passing tea and coffee plantations along the unmade road and joined our new driver Abdul to be whisked down to the Keralan coast while everybody else appeared to be coming up the mountain’s nine hairpin bends.
Turns out that it’s not only Sunday but a bit of a holiday – and a dry day to boot! We’ve both been wanting a beer for ages but they do seem hard to come by as many hotels don’t have licences and our current one said rather primly that the bar was closed.
The holiday is a Tamil one so not really as applicable to Kerala but it commemorates one god’s defeat of the demon. Worshippers often carry a pot of cow milk and mortify their flesh by piercing their skin with skewers. Glad we didn’t go and see a celebration.
Calicut was one of the most prosperous trading capitals until Vasco de Gama landed nearby in 1498 and the Portuguese destroyed most of it. But lots and lots of people from here work in the Gulf and send remittance cheques so the surrounding area is full of mansions, shops selling mansion-related products and garden centres. The relationship with the Gulf is long-standing going back to the Moppila-Muslim merchant community who ran the local Hindu ruler’s navy and trade.
The legacy is still there in the form of a strong Muslim presence in the city. The first mosque we went to see was unlike any mosque we had ever seen before. It lay behind a tank with a strange set of roofed stories rising above the other buildings:
Close up, it was even more unusual:
According to the notice outside, it was built during the fourteenth century, funded by Yemeni money. The Portuguese attempted to destroy it but it was rebuilt. The use of timber is astonishing. Apparently it rests on 24 wooden pillars.
We were, unfortunately not allowed to go inside:
Our driver Abdul took us to the second mosque, somewhat less impressive on the outside but this time we got into the entry area with an astonishing roof. Zoom in to see the Koranic sript all round the sides:
We sat patiently as we weren’t allowed inside and Abdul was keen to be our proxy photographer:
He did very well:
We then walked round the tank where people were relaxing and soaking their feet (zoom in to see):
There was lots of information about the history of the local area and accompanying tableaus. This one particularly struck us (see if you can work out what’s going on):
After all that, we went to the beach along with the rest of Calicut where a funfair and a political rally were taking place – the former more photogenic:
We had lots of chats with people who wanted to know where we were from and how we liked Calicut. And we watched everyone else take selfies, delighting in the liveliness of a Sunday afternoon in the city:
We leave extremely early tomorrow morning to fly to Chennai before making our way back to London with a flight at 4.00 am on Tuesday morning. Thanks to everyone for coming along with us – we have loved your comments and look forward to seeing at least some of you before too long.
Seems like a lovely relaxing final day. The boy in the circumcision relief (I assume) looks awfully big for mama to restrain! You two are probably en route by now – safe travels back and thanks again for sharing all the wonderful details of life, art and history.
It was a lovely day and the mosques were really something – v different to the rather flashy and very big mosques in Turkey. I thought the circumcision image was pretty alarming – and also a first in my experience. We’re now lounging about in our hotel, pointlessly ironing clothes for the flight ( when there’s an iron offered, I find it hard to refuse). Thanks for all your comments, Tara. Sue for scale signing off.
Safe travels!
Thank you! Hope we sleep!
What a fabulous journey…. Thank you. Safe travel home.
Thanks, Nicky – glad you enjoyed the trip – not too many squirrel pics I hope? Sxx
Circumcision?
Yup – one of a set of very helpful tableaux about Calicut’s history. The next one in the series was less alarming – ladies dancing around a bride and hand painting. The hotel had aVasco da Gama suite which I’d like to have seen though not entirely sure how you illustrate rapacious European mercantilism through hotel furnishing…
Safe travel home. Again, we’ve loved seeing the world through your eyes.
Thank you – v glad you’ve enjoyed the stories and images.
Sounds like it was a lovely relaxing end to your holiday – and yes, does look like a circumcision. Safe journey home!
Yes, fraid so – bit of a disturbing image I think. We’re now in a hotel by the airport, leaving tonight at 1.30am for a flight at 4 to Doha. Not looking forward to London weather but seeing friends will be grand.
And thank you both for such a fascination podcast. You’ve really brought it all alive. Hope the “getting home” part is uneventful
Thanks, Sybil. Yes, ‘uneventful’ is what we aspire to. Oh and yes, sleeping lots…
Thank you for your entertaining blogs. They have been so interesting and such a lovely way to share your trip. You will be on your way home now. Hope you have a good journey home. Very cold up where I am in the north, so hope it’s not too much of a temperature and weather shock when you get back to London.
So glad you enjoyed the stories and pictures. It was a great trip and London inevitably seems very monochrome and, of course, wet…