Things to Do in Kochi When It Is Pouring Outside

Kochi rain does not do polite drizzle. When the monsoon settles in properly, the lanes around Kaloor start holding water, Vyttila junction becomes a study in patience, and the smart move is to stop fighting the sky and pick a good roof instead. The city has plenty of rooms worth sitting in for hours. Here are seven, spread across neighbourhoods and budgets. And if all you really want is hot food and a window, we keep a separate guide to Kochi's monsoon comfort eating.

Spend a slow morning at the Kerala Folklore Museum, Thevara

Near the Thevara Ferry Junction stands a three-storey building assembled from carved wood salvaged across Kerala, with pieces of a 16th century Tamil Nadu temple worked into the entrance. Inside are thousands of objects: dance costumes including Kathakali and Mohiniyattam, mural paintings, and a wooden performance theatre at the top whose carved, mural-covered ceiling is worth the climb. Entry is a couple hundred rupees for Indian visitors, and there is a coffee shop when your feet give up. Rain hammering on all that old timber is part of the experience, not an interruption to it.

Surrender to a full mall day at Lulu, Edappally

Obvious, yes. Effective, also yes. Two million square feet at Edappally junction, more than 300 outlets, a nine-screen PVR, a roughly 5,000 sq ft ice rink billed as the largest in South India, a 12-lane bowling alley and a food court built for about 2,500 people. You can walk in dripping at noon and come out after dark without once seeing the sky. Rainy weekends get packed, so a weekday visit is the kinder option.

Watch the green paint go on at Kerala Kathakali Centre, Fort Kochi

On K B Jacob Road near Santa Cruz Basilica, the centre runs evening performances with explanations in English, and the trick locals know is to arrive early and watch the performers build their faces with natural pigments ground by hand and mixed with coconut oil. That slow transformation is half the show. Tickets run roughly Rs 400 to Rs 600 depending on what you pick; the programme stretches beyond kathakali into classical music and martial arts on different evenings.

Take coffee and a gallery in one at Kashi Art Cafe, Burgher Street

A restored old Dutch house in Fort Kochi with naturally lit hallways, a gallery up front that has been showing working artists since 1997, and a kitchen known for fresh juice, pastry and properly ground coffee. The place has long ties to the Biennale crowd, so the walls usually reward a second look. Rain in the courtyard, cake on the table, art within reach: it is hard to construct a better wet afternoon.

Lose an hour in Idiom Booksellers, Bastion Street

Tucked beside the Fort Kochi post office, Idiom is rooms crammed floor to ceiling: fiction, cookbooks, travelogues, graphic novels, second-hand finds mixed in with current titles, and a rack of postcards. Buy one, write it over a chai somewhere dry, and the post office is literally next door. If the browsing bug bites harder, our guide to bookshops across the city has more places to shelter.

See what is hanging at Durbar Hall Art Gallery, Ernakulam

The century-old durbar hall of the Cochin rajas sits beside the Ernakulam Shiva Temple, right in the middle of the city, and the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi has run it as a contemporary art venue since the early nineties. Shows rotate through steadily, sometimes three at a time, so there is nearly always something on. If you are stuck on the Fort Kochi side instead, David Hall does the quiet art room equally well.

Book the massage this season was built for

Ayurveda treats Karkidakam, the rainiest Malayalam month, as the correct time for treatment: the logic is that humid weather opens the pores and lets medicated oils absorb better. Hospital ayurveda wings and clinics around the city run monsoon packages, from a basic abhyanga, the warm-oil full-body massage, with a steam bath, up to multi-week regimens; short packages start around Rs 3,000. You walk out oiled, steamed and completely indifferent to whatever the sky is doing.

None of this needs the rain to stop, and most of it is better because it has not. For the drier days, the rest of our things-to-do section is waiting.