Cochin

[Michele Monro]

Cochin, now known as Kochi, is surrounded by a magnificent natural harbour that is dotted with picturesque islands. The region has long been attracting international mariners from Portugal, Arabia, Holland and Britain, all of whom have left their influences in the architecture and way of life on the local people. Kochi means a 'small place' in Malayalam, a rather misleading name for a city with more than 1.6 million people.

31 degrees again today and wonderful, unlike the monsoon season which runs from June to September and has about thirty inches of rain. They told us English was widely spoken but not by anyone I spoke to! I decided not to go on a tour as I wanted to get to the New Town Mall in MG Road as I had been told about this back in November when I was on Regent Cruises with Matt. Thank God immigration only took ten minutes today so I strolled off at 10.00am and hired a Tuk Tuk, an automatic rickshaw. These are absolutely not to be used by people of a nervous disposition and one should definitely wear a bra. I think my breasts are now an inch lower than this morning! The meters don't work so I agreed a price of $5.00 return and set off on my adventure.

I had no idea where we went but not to MG road and frustratingly the driver couldn't understand anything I said. I did manage to find a shoe shop and picked up a couple of saris as presents. We passed all manner of things, we even came across a couple of elephants just off the main road, but I have no idea what anything was. Unfortunately this port stop had an early sail away so I didn't dare dally too long as I didn't fancy an extended holiday in Cochin. I'm not sure how many miles we travelled back to the ship but it felt like twenty. By the time I entered the post gates I looked like a bedraggled burnt beetroot.

I literally dumped all my purchases and jumped into the pool. It was like a hot bath in there and I'm sure you could see stem coming off my body. We had a wonderful sail away party off the aft deck, passing all the fishing villages we'd missed this morning. You could see all the Chinese fishing nets off the entrance to the harbour and are still very much in use. They are thought to have been brought to India by Chinese traders from Kublai Khan's court more than a thousand years ago.

There was a tropical deck party that night. I spent an hour getting ready and went up full of good intentions BUT I must be getting old as I thought the music was so loud that every pirate left in Somali would have heard us. I last all of n hour and was happy to sneak off the bed.

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[Marian]

One tuk-tuk we took in Sri Lanka had a burst tyre, and the driver took us to garage, where it was repaired with us getting out!