Day 99 - Cochin (Kochi), Kerala, India

Day 99 – His.

 

Today is the last day of our tour and Dennis, our guide, really picked up the pace. After breakfast he took us on a town tour and excelled himself. We walked down to the beach to look at the Chinese nets, we wandered through the small markets and grabbed tuk tuks to the Dutch palace.

The palace is tiny in comparison to the North Indian piles we have seen and has a real parochial feel but the wooden ceiling and murals are well worth seeing as is the history display of the Jewish influence in this corner of the world. As well as visiting the palace we went to the synagogue – to be honest I have never been in a synagogue before so it was quite fascinating for me. Patti says she has been in several – but still found it interesting – particularly the 500 year old hand painted Chinese tiles, apparently.

Oh, I didn’t mention before but we are staying at a hotel called the Gama Heritage Hotel near the Bishop’s house. It’s one of the nicest hotels we have been in. Clean rooms, air conditioning and HBO on the telly – so what more can you ask for. Well, Patti fancied a swimming pool – which it doesn’t have – but at three stars you can’t have everything. I love it here.

After our walk around the town we had a little time to shop for presents which was very like going to an Arabian suk and as hassle-y for the haggling. It all depends on my frame of mind as to whether I enjoy haggling or not. At the moment I don’t really feel like it so shopping was a bit of a chore. After an hour or so looking at silk scarves, carved wooden boxes and various trinkets in brass we jumped on the local ferry for a tour of the bay and harbour. It cost three rupees. How much is that in real money – about 4 pence – for a half hour tour of the bay – you can’t do much better than that.

After the boat trip we walked up the town in the Fort Kochi area to a small cafe called The Teapot. Here we had an enormous pot of coffee for 40 rupees – which poured around 4 and a half cups – 15 pence a cup. Southern India really is amazing value for money.

All of this took until half two so we returned to our hotel for a shower and rest before going out for something to eat.

 

Day 99 – Hers.

It was the traditional end of tour meal this evening – minus three of the Australian girls who have already left for Goa.  We went to the restaurant at one of the luxury hotels in town – no alcohol served, so everyone was on his or her best behaviour and it was quite a pleasant meal.  Sam, the young Kiwi, made the thank you speech to Dennis and gave him the group’s tip.  We exchanged email addresses and then walked back to the hotel in light rain – nothing like last night’s deluge – quite refreshing after the sticky heat of the day.  Several of the group are up early tomorrow for flights to wherever, so we said our goodbyes and headed to our room to settle in for the night.