Our first view of Cochin from the ship revealed a region with old buildings in a state of decay typical of very old countries. Remnants of the British and Portugese appear everywhere as does a vast quantity of untamed rubbish, mainly plastics.
Seems like there is no recycling or rubbish pickup in Cochin.
We visited a lovely church and some fishing nets that work on a cunning fulcrum system; lower the nets into the water, lift them up and voila! Full of fish. The only problem seemed to be that these days the fish had moved somewhere else as though they knew this was a danger zone.
It was very humid during our visit, but we did a tour on an airconditioned coach which meant intermittent relief followed by soaking humidity. It's not all that bad being soaking hot when you know eventually you'll find a cool shower and airconditioned ship at the end of the day. The poor people who live there just have to cope - as they do. It's remarkable what we humans can adapt to.
We bypassed all the shop sellers selling essentially the same stuff everyone else seems to be selling - clothing, nick-knacks, wooden boxes, magnets and so on. You can only have so much of that stuff in one lifetime.
Back on the ship and we were heading to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, a bit like returning home.
Many people on the ship complained about their visit. Everyone, whether you got off the ship had to have a visa worth $80 USD. Even the ship's crew had to pay. My guess is that Cochin will get scrubbed from the visited ports as will other places in India. That's unfortunate because many small traders will lose a lot of business.
I checked on the Australian Govt visa site and found that transit visitors from India don't have to pay anything to pass through Australia. I'm going to take up the issue when I gets home.
Robin
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