We wake to early morning fishing activity on the harbour. We now have a new tour guide - Philip and he takes us, after breakfast, on a brief city tour, meandering off Wellingdon Island to Old Kochi - Fort Cochin and Mattancherry.

Our first stop is a church built in about 1510 by friars brought here by Vasco da Gama. Namely - The Church of St. Francis, the first built by Europeans, became a model for Christian churches in India. Having passed away on Christmas Eve, Vasco da Gama's body was temporarily buried here in 1524 and then transferred to Portugal about 14 years later. The church became Protestant after a renovation in 1663 and in turn became Anglican under the British in 1795.

We walk north from St. Francis to the "elegant" Chinese fishing nets, along a wonderfully treed Church road/River Road. These labor intensive fishing nets were introduced by traders from the court of Kublai Khan into the Malabar region. It takes about 4 men to operate them even with an intricate system of pulleys, and human counterweights. Known by the Malayalam term "cheena vala" can be seen throughout the backwaters and further south of Kochi and are a photographer's challenge - especially at sunset. We suspect that, these days, the fishermen's livelihood from tourists is greater than that of actually fishing.

After an interesting semi-solitary lunch at Methanam Restaurant, we continue on to Mattancherry Palace. Otherwise known as The Dutch Palace, it is beautiful but very small in comparison to those recently visited in the north. It was built in 1550 by Portuguese as a gift to the Raja of Cochin, Vira Keralvarma (1537-61). While the outside is understated and squat, the palace treasures include "underrated, mythological" murals, historic maps of old Cochin, coronation robes, royal palanquins, weapons and furniture. No pictures allowed. One portrait of state Royalty was so well done that not only did his eyes follow you as you moved left or right but his hands and feet did as well. Our shoes were off for this visit, not for religious reasons but to protect the Keralite floor which is a mix of burnt coconut shells, lime, plant juices and egg whites leaving a polished marble effect.

We next made a quick stop at Jew Town for a tour of the Pardesi (White Jew) Synagogue (built in 1668) featuring blue and white hand painted floor tiles from Canton. One of the Synagogue's oldest treasures, is a fourth-century copperplate inscribed by the Raja of Cochin. There are only about 5 Jews in Kochi.

Our next destination was a trip to Kumbalangi - a village about 13 kms out of Cochin - "identified as the first model fisheries and tourism village in India". We drive part of the way and then take an auto-rickshaw through narrow back lanes and country roads. We first experience the catching of farmed mud crabs, which are trussed and exported to Malaysia. Across a narrow dam another pond fishermen demonstrate netting the catch of the day - less than good today. We walk by a group of men hand-working furniture, en-route to coconut processing. The coconuts are harvested manually from the trees, the fruit removed and the exterior is then placed in water for a few days. The ladies remove the coconut from the interior of the fruit by hand, and separately save the water and the grated fruit for use in cooking. The hulls are beaten, once removed from the water, to separate the fibres which are then twisted manually and with crude spinners into a very strong twine. When tested, even a single strand of coconut fibre proves unbreakable. Some of the little women also make jewellery from the cleaned strands. Amazing! We close our tour by watching a little women weaving a swatch from coconut tree leaves.

After a quick happy hour, the girls close out the day on a sunset cruise on the harbour. We netted a picture of the Chinese fishing nets at sundown - not quite the ultimate but beautiful nevertheless.