Most of you must have been to an everyday fish market, but this experience is totally different because it’s Neendakara fishing harbour.
Neendakara fishing harbour is a magnificent fishing harbour in the coast of Ashtamudi lake. One can also witness the confluence of Ashtamudi lake and Arabian sea from the Neendakara bridge. Neendakara is the biggest fishing harbour in Kerala having the capacity to contain over 500 fishing boats at a time and is among the major sea ports in Kerala
How to reach
Nearest railway station: Kollam, about 9 km away
Nearest airport: Trivandrum International Airport is around 66 km away
How did we travel
We took a bus from Kollam city at 4 am to reach the harbour and from the entrance gate you need to walk a little inside the harbour and then you will enter the fish market. It took us almost an hour’s journey.
The experience
My teachers used to scream in the classroom saying ” classroom ko machli market bana rakha h” (the class room sounds like a fish market). I understood the meaning of the sentence clearly on this day.
There were thousands of people in the harbour, shouting, screaming bargaining, selling and buying fish. No one was bothered to have a look at the spectator who is watching them for the first time. The place was in so much chaos that I couldn’t hear my mother speaking even though she was just besides me.
The next thing I noticed was heaps of different varieties of fishes being placed like mountains for bidding. I wondered: How many fishes are there in the sea because this was just the scene of one fishing harbour in Kerala? It was just a day’s scene for me and one can imagine how many fishes the sea has in the entire universe.
As we entered the main harbour, we saw so many fishing boats arriving with tons and tons fishes. So, they have these big tanks inside their boats where the fishes are stored, which will be transferred to an even more huge container at the harbour. This is a very different experience!!! The different varieties of fishes are separated in the boat itself so that it’s absolutely ready for the selling process.
There were plenty of men who I assume were restaurant owners who were bidding on heaps of fishes. On the contrary there were few people stealing fishes from these heaps and selling it at a much cheaper price for the spectators like us.
I was amazed by the whole setup, the scenario and of course the fish mountains.
Well it was stinking like hell and what happened is, a fisherman was taking his fish basket on his head and by mistake his basket slipped and the water from his basket fell on me!!
I felt disgusted but the whole process of the struggle of these fishermen made me realise that this is their everyday job and they do it so much passion but still I was drenched with stinky fish water. (Advantage: I got the whole seat all for myself in the bus as no one wanted to sit near me !! not even my parents)
Well, the advantage of visiting this place if you are fish lover is; you can get plenty of fish at a very cheap price and you can have a close view of a process which each and every fishing harbour witnesses on an everyday basis. And to watch so many fishes of different shapes, sizes and colours will make you appreciate the mother nature for creating them all so unique 🤩
If you ever have a chance to witness this process please try and reach before 6 am because that’s when you can watch the whole process. If you are late then you might not even see the fishes because by 9 am the harbour is empty.
As a child all the images and scenes are stored in my memories and the only regret I have now is at that time I did not have a camera to capture this. Probably next time I would defianely capture some.
Tinkers
Neendakara Fishing Harbour made me realise that sometimes chaos has its own beauty.
Harrytinkers travelog 