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A morning on Bazaar Road, Mattancherry
Godowns, ginger yards and the old warehouses by the water: a short walk through Kochi’s spice street.
Bazaar Road runs parallel to the backwater from Mattancherry towards Fort Kochi, and it has been a spice street for centuries. If you are visiting Kochi, a morning here shows how the trade still works.
Start around 9 am, when the godowns open their wooden doors and the lorries are unloading. You will smell the street before you see it: dry ginger, pepper and turmeric, with the salt of the water behind. Many godowns are old Dutch and Gujarati warehouses with high ceilings and timber beams, and through the open doors you can see sacks stacked to the roof. Please ask before photographing people at work; most will happily say yes.
Between the godowns are ginger yards, where dried ginger is spread out and sometimes still treated with lime. Further along are wholesale shops for tamarind, dry chillies and copra. Small cafés serve chai and pazham pori, and the Jewish quarter and Mattancherry Palace are a short walk away if you want to make a morning of it.
Our own shop is at number 6/412, in the same rooms our great-grandfather used in 1958. Visitors can see the bamboo trays in the cleaning room and smell the week’s grinding on a Tuesday. We sell in small packs as well as by the kilo, and we can courier anything you buy, so you need not carry it home. Most shops on the street close by 6.30 pm, and many close on Sundays.
