Cochin 3rd- 6th March The travellers re-unite (hope someone remembered the gin!)

Jo arrived in Cochin after an 8 hour journey by bus and train, travelling local class while Nikki flew from Delhi with a budget airline……both journeys, however, were on time and we arrived at our home stay (which was great) within 20 minutes of each other.

We stayed in Fort Cochin which is the most popular part of the city for tourists. It is a clean, quaint old place, with quiet, hassle-free narrow streets, full of crumbling buildings and blessed with delightful cafes serving the most diverse menus we have seen yet. Ginger ice cream, death by chocolate cake and various other treats went down very nicely along with Keralan specialities such as Fish Moilee. We feasted.
As we had both visited before about 10 years ago, we were happy to mooch around the atmospheric streets, although we did re-visit Jew Town and the synagogue and then headed to the famous Chinese fishing nets for sunset. These nets take 4 people to operate and work rather like a gigantic catapult. However, the nets are not so profitable now and the cunning fishermen have hatched a plan to extract money from the tourists. We were those tourists and were coaxed onto one of the nets, climbing over a bridge of sandbags and then onto the loose planks of the platform.

The four fisherman, built like stick insects and with a combined age of at least 230 were delighted at our presence (and gullibility!) The ring leader invited us to help lift the nets whilst he photographed the proceedings, stressing we should only use our arms and let the men do the real work. However, Nikki paid no attention to this instruction and began to heave for all she was worth. It soon became clear that this was a skilled job as she quickly lost her balance and was suddenly dangling precariously over the water clinging to the rope. Remarkably, she managed to right herself and after much hilarity the net was in. We decided not to eat the fish we'd raised for dinner that night as they were a meagre offering!

The next day we pursued a little retail therapy in Fab India (it IS Fab!) we spent the majority of the day in a delightful teashop sampling a range of their menu (Nikki's excuse is that it was about 36 degrees!) Delicious samosas and great lassis!

Cochin is a great place to visit if you want a gentle introduction to the real India and enjoy good food and a spot of shopping!