We woke up about 7 again, dressed and went for a light
breakfast in the coffee bar. We have to
go through another Indian immigration process again today and that delayed all
of the passengers from getting to their tours on time.
We were in Bus 1 this time and had Abraham (Abe) Jacob as
our guide. He was one of the best guides
we have had. The streets were crowded
with traffic, scooters and pedestrians.
I don’t know how the bus drivers do it.
Our first stop was at the Palace which hasn’t been used since the mid 1900’s. It is now a museum. It had interesting paintings on the walls and lots of artifacts on display. I bought a “doorbell” for our travel tree. It was a long string with 7 elephants and knots and a bell on the end. It is colorful and will be perfect for our travel tree. We then walked through a large shopping district with all kinds of shops. Abe took us to a shop with pushy salespeople. We decided to go out on our own. I bought a bag of cashews and a wooden box with brass elephants in the top for Lauren and Lillian to use as an overflow box for travel postcards.
Part of the old "palace"
The old palace building - not very impressive
These boys were bathing in the dirty water!
Piles of nuts inside one of the many open shops along the street
Women weaving fabric in one store
Sign to "Jew Street"
The old Synagogue
We then loaded back on the bus and went for a comfort stop where they sold textiles, rugs, statutes, you name it! One couple was looking at a silk rug and they were told it was $1,300, but it was really $13,000. He came down to $10,000 but they didn’t buy it.
We went to the Anglican Church where Vasco da Gama was originally buried in the early 1500’s. His body was entombed there for many years but subsequently taken back to Portugal. It was the Portuguese that originally settled much of this area.
The old St Francis Church - original burial place of Vasco da Gama
Inside the old church
St Francis Church, Cochin
We walked from the church to the Mongolian fishing
nets. They were interesting
contraptions. We walked through many
shops and then walked to a large boat for our harbor cruise. We cruised on the lake for about an hour and
passed a “fish market” where a boat had just brought in a large catch of small
fish – either herring or sardines. It
was interesting to watch them unload them and push them into the market for
sale.
The large fish nets set up on shore
"Art" in the park
Our boat ride gets ready to sail
Sailing around Cochin Harbor
The fish nets seen along the coast
Close up of the huge fish nets
Our cruise boat
The fish market with a boat arriving with fish for sale
The haul the fish up in buckets from the small boat
Colorful boats along the shore
We returned to another pier near our ship and the bus was
waiting to take us back to the ship. We
went back to the pool grill for lunch.
Then Tim went to do his daily “Tony Workout” and I read for a while.
We had a leisurely afternoon and then the ship sailed near
sunset. We talked to some of the staff – the singers, Mark and Sophie – as the
ship sailed out of the Cochin port. We
had dinner with George and Grant from Victoria and Les and Bill from San
Francisco in the Compass Rose Dining Room.
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