We took a short flight from Mumbai, down the coast to Kochi. We stayed in the Fort Kochi neighborhood, the tourist center of Kochi and near the cantilevered Chinese Fishing Nets in Kochi. These are largely for tourists now, but you can still buy fish caught using the nets.
After the bustle of Mumbai we really enjoyed the quieter Fort Kochi area. Our favorite part of our homestay was the delicious breakfasts on the upstairs patio every morning.
We spent our first full day walking around with a new friend we met in the Kochi airport. Despite the heat, we managed to see just about all of the tourist sites within walking distance from Fort Kochi. 
We went to a Kathakali classic Indian dance. It’s a play where the words are spoken in a sign language and the emotions are shown through defined facial expressions and eye movements. This was a short version made for tourists, complete with an explanation, thankfully. While it was interesting to watch for the 1.5 hour show, it was really hard to follow and the cymbals were clanging incredibly loud, so I left with a headache.
We took the ferry from Fort Kochi to the mainland one day to look for some contact solution. Found it, bought it, and later realized I got hard contact solution… oops. But we did have a great time eating thali for lunch, riding the ferry at sunset, and meeting/taking selfies with random people in the park 🙂
One of our favorite places in Fort Kochi, the Solar Cafe, across from the ferry:
Highlights of Kochi:
- Walking around Fort Kochi with our new friend
- Taking the Ferry to the mainland and back. We could have skipped the mainland, but the ferry is cool, especially for $0.06 per ticket
- Watching Priscilla be a master bargainer to score some sweet pants
- Thali lunch at the Solar Cafe