Cochin, India

We had an early tour this morning. We met in the theater so we could go through face to face immigration. Then we boarded the bus for a city tour. It was actually a tour of the old city. We first went to one of the oldest churches in the city. Cochin was ruled by the Portuguese, then the Dutch came, then the British, so there are many different types of architecture in the old town. From the church, we walked a couple blocks to the beach to see the Chinese fishing nets. Of course there were vendors along the way. They are very aggressive in India so you just have to ignore them. I managed to buy nothing this morning. The Chinese fishing nets are very interesting. They can only use them at high tide. There are several ropes with several stones of different weights attached. After they lower the net they pull up the net with the stones, quickly grab any fish with fishing nets. Then they go down again. I turned around and saw the condition of the beach behind us-pretty bad. We walked down a street along the beach filled with vendors. We walked by the remains of an old fort, maybe Portuguese. We saw the canoes they use for fishing. There was a fish market along the way. Then we got back on the bus to go to a palace. Another 20 minute drive through the city. There are a lot of scooters here too but it’s not as bad as Saigon. When we pulled up to the place, there were several buses there. The street was narrow but they somehow managed to back them into the shallow parking area. The palace was not very ornate but it had several detailed murals on the walls. They were very well preserved. We couldn’t photograph the murals so I took pictures of a beautiful window seat. Next on the agenda was a 10 minute walk up the street to an old synagogue. There used to be a thriving Jewish community there. They did not intermarry with the locals and s o the community dwindled. There are only 2 Jews living there now. It had gotten very hot and humid by then so I gave up on the Synagogue and went back to the bus for the A/C. Bunny and several others came too. From there we went back to the ship. We had a late lunch and went to finish up packing. Our suitcases were taken last night so we filled up backpacks with every thing we forgot to pack. I brought my big camera and with the iPad it wouldn’t hold both. So I used a small tote bag for the iPad. I will have to carry it on the plane with me when we fly to Delhi..

We went back to the theater at 4:00 to get ready for departure on the overland trip. They gave us our passports so we could go through immigration again. Much easier this time. We got on our buses and took another city tour. We only stopped at the fishing nets. I asked about restrooms. There were none there so after everyone got back on we went to a shop that had several restrooms. We also took a few minutes to shop. I found a pretty silk scarf. Then back on the bus to go to the modern part of the city to our hotel. We are at a Marriott by a huge mall. We have 4 hours free tomorrow afternoon so we might just go there. We got to the hotel , where they took our passports. Then they sent us to a room to get room key and give us back our passports. We dropped off the luggage and went downstairs to the buffet dinner. It was a huge buffet and I didn’t recognize anything. So I had rice, and a noodle dish. I also had some grilled naan, which is Indian flat bread. Now we are in the room watching a movie on TV. It’s wonderful to have real TV again.

Photos: Top picture is the morning balcony view. Nice to see something other than big cranes in the port. Next is the welcoming committee as we left the ship. There were 2 young ladies with trays. One of them put a yellow dot on our foreheads. Next is the church we saw, then the nets. You can see the net pulled up in the first pix and down in the water in the second. Sorry the very dirty beach is the large picture. Parts of the city were very clean, then we’d go by an area that was as filthy as this beach. Another tour to a village in the morning. Just realized I didn’t include palace photos. Will do that tomorrow. It is really great to have decent WiFi.