A 4 hour train ride this time which made a nice change from 6 to 7 hours on buses. Had a meal in the hotel restaurant that night, but neither of us particularly enjoyed it and didn't actually finish it. An hour later and Dave was sitting on the toilet, soon after that I was in there bringing up more than I had just eaten! Followed by several more visits during the night with action from the other end. It seemed a bit quick for the hotel meal, so we are tending to think it may have been a dodgy biryani we both ate at the train station before we left Calicut. 16 days without trouble, odds were that something was bound to catch us eventually. Whatever the cause, it wiped us out for our first day here in Kochi. We booked another night to compensate. Back on track this morning we ate a plain omelette each and set off to explore the town.
We headed for the harbour to watch the fishing nets in action. Amazing contraptions, all counterbalanced with rocks and sort of cobbled together with various poles lashed together with ropes. Dave got called in to try his hand at pulling a net in. Quite sad to see the size of fish that they catch (and keep) as it isn't the best season right now. After that, as we wandering along the waterfront, we were intercepted by yet another tuk tuk driver, offering a tour of the town for 50 rupee ($1) in his 'Indian Ferrari'. An offer too good to refuse in the heat, and we weren't exactly full of energy after the previous night and day. The driver had really good English and showed us around lots of interesting places many of which had Portugese and Dutch heritage. Some of the approx. 500 yr old Portugese warehouses are still being used for spice warehouses today. Showed us a co-op where a certain caste of people do handwashing in a big complex. Lots of old fashioned prop lines for drying, and then to top the manual process off, they still use heavy old irons with hot coals inside, to do the pressing. Of course his tour also included a couple of handcraft etc shops. Everything is so gorgeous it is hard to resist, and they all have a pretty good line of patter too...
We have booked in for an overnight cruise in the backwaters, starting at lunchtime tomorrow, so here's hoping the boat is actually as nice as it looks in the hotel brochure!
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