Tue, Apr 25: Kochi

This is a map of our itinerary...West India, the Indian Ocean and Sri Lanka.  

And a mini-map of where we will be traveling in the Seychelles.

Today was sightseeing around Kochi.  First stop was the Mattancherry Palace (also called the Dutch Palace), built by the Portuguese in 1555 and later passed to the Dutch and eventually the British.  It is now a museum.

We walked from there through a number of city streets and stopped to look in the shops.  

We stopped in an embroidery shop.  The hand work was exquisite.  

shop was owned by an old acquaintance of Tara’s where there was some heavy bargaining over an antique piece that Scott and Melissa were interested in.  Unfortunately they couldn’t come to an agreement, even with Tara’s incredible bargaining skills, so no sale. 

We then walked over to the Jewish Synagogue, built in 1568.  Most of the Jewish population moved to Israel after its founding as aJewish state.  There are currently only 5 Jews (5 families???) in the city, the youngest is 40. 

We then stopped by St. Francis Church.  There is a large population of Christians in this area thanks to the early Portuguese and Dutch. 

Vasco de Gama, the famous explorer, died in India and was originally buried in the church.  However, his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539.  The church doesn't miss an opportunity to point out that he was originally buried here.

Then we walked over to the waterfront for a stroll.  

A net to catch fish...

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Watch a video of the net and fish caught
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There were a lot of sidewalk shops including lots of fresh fish…

And a couple of men selling gadgets for doing fancy cake (icing) decorating.

Early in its history Kochi was visited by a number of Chinese so they still use the giant Chinese fishing nets.  

We got to help raise one of them.  There have huge rocks on ropes to act as counter weights to raise the nets but it still takes five or six people to raise the nets.

As soon as the nets cleared the water the sea birds were all over it trying to pluck out the fish.

We had a pretty pathetic catch but then it was during the middle of the day.

Lunch was at the Xandari Harbour Hotel right along the waterfront where we met two of Tara’s staff.  The restaurant was air conditioned so we were all very happy to stretch out the meal. 

Then it was a short van ride to a pier where we caught the Arabian Queen for a harbor cruise.  The boat had a grand name for its simplicity.  

One of the highlights of the cruise was the dolphins.  Otherwise it was a nice boat ride in a typical bay.

After that it was to a local spice shop...

and a bangle and costume jewelry shop.

We were back in plenty of time for our boats departure for a three day sail to the Seychelles.