Monday: Travel to Cochin, India

I haven't really ever traveled with a tour group like this before. Although I only knew Dawn previously, now everyone on this group is my friend. It's a fun group. Today our group grew in size from 13 to 17. We added a woman dentist from Baltimore (she is originally from Sri Lanka), and her attorney daughter who is also in Baltimore. Also joining us on this excursion are two Sri Lankan women who are administrators/managers for DCI. 

Today we had to be ready to leave the hotel at 4 AM for our transport to the Colombo Airport. 

It was about an hour flight to Cochin, which is on the southwest tip of India. Cochin, also spelled KOCHI, is a historic city in the Indian state of Kerala. Kerala is about the size of Maryland, but has a population about the size of California. I was greeted with a marigold lei.

We took a bus from the airport into old town Cochin. This was about an hour. This is a historic city that was initially settled by the Portuguese, later taken over by the Dutch, and ultimately by the British. The history and colonial influences here are interesting.

We had lunch at a hotel that is a converted old historic home. It's now a boutique hotel. I thought the pool area looked beautiful. We had a buffet lunch of traditional southern Indian foods. My stomach was a little edgy so I didn't eat much.

Then we departed for a walking tour of this area. Here are some scenes from that. Directly this area was important as part of the spice trade. But interestingly before the Portuguese brought peppers here from Brazil, the food was very bland with no spices. Terrier has historically been a big fishing community since it is right on the coast. Fishing is still a big part of the economy here. They officially little teeny canoe boats and also with these shore-based nuts. 

We stopped at this very old Catholic Church. Supposedly Vasco de Gama died here and was buried at this church in 1680.

When we re-boarded our bus for a two hour ride to Kumakaron. We passed rice fields along the way. Our bus barely squeeze through some of the small roads and little villages. Ultimately we ended up at a nice resort, where I enjoyed a hot shower a soft bed, and managed to eat a decent buffet dinner. The sunset was spectacular.

Tomorrow or group will leave here for another hour long bus ride. We will board four houseboats to cruise some of these waterways. I'm told there's no Wi-Fi on the houseboats, so this blog may be quiet for a few days.