Cochin, India

Saturday, December 9 Cochin, India

Today marks the last day that the ship stops in India. My how time flies. A week ago, we still weren’t certain that we would even get our visas to be able to get off the boat in India, and now we’re leaving.
We landed this morning at approximately 8:00am in Cochin,( sometimes spelled Kochin) a very busy seaport and headed to our first stop, Mattancherry Pakace ( or Dutch Palace. The Portugese built this for the local government in the 16th century as a gift for the Maharaja of Cochin in exchange for trading rights. The interior contains period furnishings, weapons, period carrages aand wall murals painted on the wooden walls.
Our next stop was at at a spice store, which also sold a very extensive array of clothing and materials. However, it seemed that they had one staff member hovering over each of us and it was very annoying. They closed the front door in an effort to keep us there as long as possible. We were getting frustrated, and Lee finally told them she had to get out or she would be sick from the incense smells and they finally took us out the back door. We waited in the street for our guide to come out for far too long but were able to watch the world of tuk-tuks, motor scooters, cars and people, all swarming around a very busy intersection. While we were waiting, Don ran across the street and bought a short sleeve shirt with elephants on it.
We drove to the old section of town and visited the Saint Francis church originally built in 1503, is one of the oldest European churches in India. The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama died in Kochi in 1524 when he was on his third visit to India. He was originally buried here in 1524, but later was exhumed and moved to Portugal.
We then walked to a fishing area where Chinese influenced large triangle shaped frames with fishing nets lined the shore. With nets attached, the counter-balanced frames are lowered into the flowing river to catch fish.
Next onto a boat for a harbour cruise. Once again, it was a treacherous boarding process of going through several boats, all bobbing and sliding back and forth before we got onto our boat. It’s a miracle no one got hurt. The cruise lasted about an hour, and you could certainly see how very busy the commercial port and the fishing industries were. We had a 10-minute stop where the fishing boats docked to remove the fish they had caught and sell it to the markets on the pier.
After landing we went back to the ship for a late lunch and relaxing around the pool. It must have been 34° C and it felt like we were in an oven. We both had a snooze and Lee worked again on her blog.

The entertainment tonight was the Navigator Production Company’s inaugural presentation of Broadway in Concert” featuring the melodies from famous Broadway shows. It was entertaining and performed without a hitch.Read more