Fort Kochi is touristy enough that auto rickshaw drivers shadow you. You will eventually give in, believe me, you will. When you finally resign yourself to catching a ride in one of these 3 wheeled beasts my recommendation is to ask the driver to take for a ‘real Kochi tour’.
Joseph took me to see a few kilometres further along the coast and it was nice to see the beaches get cleaner. This sketch above of fishing boats lined up along St. John’s Pattam beach was drawn very quickly. Quickly because the meter was running of course!
Most of the boats are named in either English or Malayalam after St Anthony the patron saint of sailors and fisherman.
After Pattam beach we stopped at some shrimp and duck farms, Joseph pointed out a fish trap that appeared as a small island of sticks protruding out of the surface of the lake.
We stopped briefly at Joseph's local rickshaw mechanic who was flat-out under a rickshaw parked on the side of the street, one wheel cocked at an angle. I sketched while the rickshaw idled erratically and eventually the mechanic realised what I was doing and came over for a chat.
We stopped at a road side butchers shop as hanging buffalo carcasses were being broken down and masses of traffic zoomed past. No refrigeration needed here! I thought it was interesting that Kerala is not only vegetarian and meat is part of many peoples diets. Nebeel, one of the butchers raced over to check out the sketch and insisted I come inside to meet the other butchers. People were genuine and proud to show their work places to me.
We left Nebeel and soon stopped to check out some papad being dried on benches outside a beautiful and ancient Brahman style house. The owners invited me in and let me sketch while Parvathy expertly rolled small blobs of dough into perfectly circular poppadums. I bought some bags of delicious cooked chilly papad for later.
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That's Joseph in front of his auto above and a typical auto rickshaw on the right. I believe the sign at the top, written in Malayalam, means 'working truck'.