World Cruise: Cochin, India

We prepared ourselves for our visit to India by reading our guide books and attending some onboard lectures. Brian has also done some reading on the colonial history of India recently. However, the best advice we received about visiting India was..."you cannot apply western values to what you see in India". In other words, it is so culturally different from our way of life, you have to open up your mind in order to see the magic of this subcontinent. This advice was so true!

Our first stop was in Cochin, a port city located in the State of Kerala on southern India's Malabar Coast facing the Arabian Sea. Cochin has an interesting colonial history of exploration and settlement by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British (in that order). For our visit, we went on a long day's private tour arranged by two friends from New York, Kyle and George.

In the morning, we hopped into a van with a tour guide named Markose and a driver that picked us up on the pier. We traveled around historic Fort Cochin visiting key sites. We stopped at the Dutch Palace (a historic building with a great regional museum); Jew Town (an area settled by Jewish traders in the 1500's); a Jewish synagogue built in 1568; a market and fishing area along the waterfront where we saw a very cool demonstration of the large ancient Chinese fishing nets still in use today; and a historic church where the Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama was originally entombed. It was a great tour of this interesting area and our tour guide was very informative.

Next, we drove out of the City about an hour and one-half to Alleppey (known as the "Venice of the East") where we boarded a houseboat for a tour of the backwaters of the area to learn about the local villages along the waterways and lake. It was a crazy drive out of town and was frightening at times because driving in India is absolute chaos. Our driver did a great job of getting us to Alleppey without incident although there were a number of close calls!! Our beautiful vintage houseboat had 2 bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, a kitchen and seating area with a dining table on the front. We cruised the river, canals and lake for over 3 hours watching the villagers as they fished, washed clothes, bathed and swam in the local waters. It was a very interesting glimpse into the rustic village lifestyle. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon on the water so there were lots of houseboats out on the water full of tourists and locals enjoying the day out. Everyone was friendly and waving as we went past. The chef on our houseboat served us an incredible lunch of local Indian cuisine including meat and vegetable curries and Kingfisher beer. We all enjoyed the feast and good company of our enthusiastic tour guide and his assistants.

After the boat trip, we had a harrowing drive back to the ship. We got caught in a massive traffic jam near the ship due to a visit from a political candidate that necessitated closing a bridge for a time. Cars, motorcycles, buses, tuk-tuks and trucks were all trying to get across the clogged bridge at the same time. It was a wild bridge crossing. Fortunately, we had a late sailing that night so we had plenty of time to get back to the ship. It was an extraordinary day in Cochin for us with some terrific fellow "Worldies" and a wonderful tour guide. It was a truly memorable introduction to magical India.