Cochin, India (Itinerary) 

 
The flag man hoisted the Sri Lankan flag instead of the plain yellow flag which indicates that the ship is healthy:  in the old days it meant free of yellow fever. We guessed that he saw the yellow border and never checked when he raised it. Cochin is a new port for us.

 
We loved seeing the Brahmany kites circling behind the fishing boats. This place is famous for its cantilevered fishing nets.

A large group of men were collecting fish from a seine net attached to the boat.

A local ferry transports pedestrians and a few cars across the bay.

 
Decay was evident along the shore.

But there were some newer buildings and older places that looked cared for as well. This was our first stop in India, which has onerous visa and immigration regulations. All the passengers had to meet face-to-face with officious officials with our passports and our expensive visas in hand. We went through the line early and decided that morning to take a ship's tour:  an 8-hour tour which included a boat tour of backwaters of Alappuzha, which is both a town and lake region of the southern Indian state of Kerala, about 40 miles south of Cochin.

 
Our bus driver was aggressive in barreling the bus through the traffic. Anvar was our travel guide for the day.

These large logs are labeled for market.

   
Many work trucks are brightly painted and Anvar told us that some of the names on the front are the favored gods of the drivers. A brightly-colored array of garb worn by people sitting at a bus stop.

We saw more nets from the bus out in the middle of a lake or bay.

 
A produce truck piled high. Finally, we boarded the tour boat, a double-decker with a tarp covering the top. We situated ourselves in the top front for better photos even though we were mostly in the sun.

Looking toward the stern.

Smaller tour boats line the bulkhead along the shore.

We came to the end of the canal and into the greater lake area.

This place is famous for its hundreds of slug-like houseboats.

Mats of water hyacinths support grasses and other vegetation.

Cotton-like fluff was emerging from pods to carry their seeds far and wide.

 
A rare Cristian church...

This guy with his modern rowing shell was a sharp contrast to the old dugout canoes. 

 
We learned from Anvar that the communist party is strong here, which is why was saw these symbols painted in red on some buildings. We wondered what the pile of bags were at this mosque:  we found out later that they were probably filled with rice.

These boys were using banana tree trunks as floats in the water.

Fish farms...

 
Anvar demonstrates how to tie a men's sarong, which is a wide tube of fabric that you step into.

 
We stopped for a few minutes for a coconut break. A few of our fellow travelers bought freshly opened green coconuts with a straw for the water. It is not coconut milk until it's ripe.

   
More laundry: the photo on the right shows how the clothes are beat until the dirt finally gives up.

Duck pens...

This was the other busload on this HAL excursion, so this is what our boat looked like. We'd join them for lunch.

Large piles of rice on tarps at the edge of the fields.

The communist workers wear red shirts and are the only ones allowed to pack the rice on this day.

Unlike the terraced rice paddies that we'd seen before, these fields are on the floodplain and can be harvested by machine.

A long boat with a maximum load of rice:  there were only six inches of freeboard.

The rice boats were delivering rice to each house.

 
Preparing food and catching fish. Note the fisherman's clean and pressed sarong.

 
Clothes aren't the only things being washed in this water, pots & people are also washed here.

Old boats rotted on the shoreline. We guessed that the reuseable parts had been salvaged.

Cormorants...

 
A foot bridge between islands. A Buddhist temple.

A very long war canoe.

This was our lunch spot, The Lake Palace Resort.

 
We had not pre-saved seats in the dining room, so by the time we got through the buffet line, there were not two seats together so we sat out on the porch by ourselves:  much quieter except for all the ravens. Lunch was good and we appreciated the nice big glass of the local Kingfisher Beer, too.

The resort included walks, a swimming pool, and a demonstration fishing net.

   
Our favorite bird was the stork-billed kingfisher with its huge bill. We also saw pond herons and smaller kingfishers.

On our walk around the grounds, we saw some rice fields, which were not ready for harvest yet.

After lunch, it was only 15 minutes back to the narrow channel where we'd started. We saw this guy with an interesting load of sticks and bananas and on the shore, one of those highly decorated trucks. The drive back included a quick tour of Cochin, but photos from the bus were less than wonderful, so we'll take photos if we ever make our way back to this port again.

Back on the ship, our sail-away party entertainment was by a local Indian group with a drummer, female chanter, a graceful dancer, and a beautiful stringed instrument called a tabla:  it sounded similar to a sitar. Dean's Log:Cochin

One sea day and then on to Mumbai.