During my visit to Fort Kochi last month, I stayed in 16th and 17th century bungalows that also hosted the likes of Vasco da Gama, governers of Portugese and Dutch administration, a French Admiral and a British Major.
About a month ago, universe conspired that I should take a holiday in Fort Kochi. I had scheduled a work-related visit to Cochin and my air tickets were all booked. Just as the dates approached–I still hadn’t planned my accommodation–I was invited by Neemrana to visit and experience their two non-hotel hotels in Fort Kochi. And two days before departure, all my work commitments in Kochi were cancelled, enabling me to enjoy an undisturbed beach-side holiday.
My first day at Fort Kochi was spent at Le Colonial, a 16th century bungalow that has witnessed much of Kochi’s recorded history. It was established as the governor’s residence when the then small fishing village was gifted by Raja of Kochi to the Portuguese. It continued to serve the same purpose more than a century later, even after the area came under Dutch control . Fort Kochi changed hands again and came under British rule another one-and-a-half centuries later, in the last decade of 18th century, and remained in their hands until the day of independence.
Now a boutique hotel since it last changed hands into Neemrana, Le Colonial has just seven rooms carefully decorated to reflect the days of it’s past. The rooms aren’t numbered, but named after personalities associated with the building. My room was named after Mahe de la Bourdonnais, who happened to spend a night here on his way from Pondicherry to Mahe.
A few days ago, a good friend asked me to share five landscapes images in five days on a social media platform. This, I did dutifully. Photographing landscapes has always been a meditative experience for me. People who know me often call me a lazy photographer, something that I wholeheartedly agree in most occasions. But when it comes to photographing landscapes, I am willing to go to the world’s end, climb a mountain or swim with the sharks if that’s what it takes. Well I haven’t gone swimming with the sharks, but I have endured frostbitesy weathers and stood on ice until my feet ached with cold, have walked for days in unforgiving places, have endured dozens of kilos on my back and dragged myself up on passes and sacrificed a million sugary morning dreams. And every single time I did this, I came back deeply satisfied, with renewed wish to do more of it. So when someone tags me to post image of landscapes there is only one thing to do – comply!
Here is the collection of images I posted in five days, put together.
1. Sunrise from Anjanadri, Hampi.
Here is first of the five images, made in Hampi. I thought it was going to be a simple, easy-to-shoot image catching the sun coming up on the hills of Hampi overlooking Tungabhadra. But I had to spend pretty much all of my brain and endure a bit of panic (about fast loosing the time) before finally managing this image.
2. Winter Landscape, Ladakh
Here is an image from Ladakh, during the winter months. Coping the cold in winter’s Ladakh is a big challenge. The weather is unforgiving. But the rewards are plenty as well. There is so much snow around that it can hurt the eye. Frost makes beautiful shapes. Frozen lakes form gigantic flat fields. Mountains are sprinkled with powdery snow. Most importantly, photographing landscapes here in the winter months is a gratifying experience.
I was invited last week for a Media-Meet at Christ University, Bangalore, to conduct a workshop on travel writing for undergraduate and post-graduate students from across Bangalore.
It appears that there are a lot of folks who want to be travel writers. The workshop had to be delayed by twenty minutes, as the turnout was far higher than expected and it took some time to accommodate all the attendees. Here is what I presented at the workshop.