Where Time Flows Backwards

Fort Kochi’s Dutch, Portuguese, and British heritage lives on in homestays that offer cosy nooks, great food, and a strong sense of time travel

- Chandni Doulatramani

Stippled with bungalows inside lanes with blooming bougainvillea, Fort Kochi has held on to its water colour charm for over a few hundred years. In the quainter parts of the port town are more winding lanes with buildings in chrome yellow, cool mint, white, and lavender. Fort Kochi’s history is checkered with long periods of colonisation—by the Portuguese (1503-1683), the Dutch (1683-1795), and the British (1795-1947)—which gives the region its distinct Indo- European character.

While most of the larger bungalows in the area have been demolished to accommodate a covey of contemporary structures since Independence, a handful still exist in their original glory. These structures, most of them around 300 years old, have been restored and turned into homestays. The concept of homestays took wing in Fort Kochi around 25 years ago to offset the expenses that went into maintaining the properties. In turn, tourists, especially those from outside the country, discovered that homestays offered them an intimate experience of the region’s history and culture; their time with the local property owners and families an interesting alternative to traditional hotel stays.

Here are four colonial-era homestays in Fort Kochi, huddled not very far from each other—all at walking distance from the town centre.

THE DUTCH DELIGHT

A perfectly manicured garden, hemmed by a white picket fence, leads you to the two-century-old Delight Homestay. Possibly Fort Kochi’s first homestay, the red-stone-and lime-structure has been run by locals David Lawrence and wife Flowery David for the last 24 years. Flowery’s ancestors bought the property from a Malayali gentleman from Kottayam in the late 1940s for ₹4,000.