Cochin, India

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

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Wherever I go, in or out of Australia, I always ask myself, "would I live here?" There are many beautiful places on this wonderful planet that Carl Sagan referred to as, 'the little blue dot' as he viewed it from cameras on one of the numerous exploratory space vehicles, possibly Voyager.

Colombo doesn't appeal to me as a place I'd like to live. There was rubbish everywhere as though there are no rubbish collection services, the buildings are in disrepair - possibly because they are very old, and it's a tad crowded for a simple outback boy.

However, in its favour, the people we met were friendly and pleasant. Perhaps if one actually spent some time there, it would become more appealing and one would focus on the positives instead of comparing it with other countries.

Obviously, the millions who live there are happy to call it home and have dozens of cruise ships with thousands of tourists visit, trample all over their temples and contribute probably millions to the economy.

Although it was nice to see how the others live and explore the ancient ruins and British era buildings, one visit is probably enough.

Robin
Off to Cochin, India.

PS: It was saddening and disappointing to hear about the violence caused by Islamists over the holiest of Christian holidays. How one can justify a belief in a loving, omniscient God with violence against your fellow humans is anyone's guess. The Koran instructs Moslems to subdue or kill what amounts to two thirds of the world's population - non-Moslems; now of course they are also killing off their fellow Moslems whom they believe are not orthodox enough.

If I was god, I'd be heartbroken to think anyone would carry out these acts in my name.

Beautiful Singapore - Jewel of Asia

I first visited Singapore in 1955 with my parents enroute to my father's new job with a tin mining company working out of Kuala Lumpur.

The only recollection I have from those days is the Raffles Hotel with ceiling fans that got my attention as I had never seen ceiling fans  before, and monkeys that hung about in the nearby trees.

I recall a story about the monkeys getting into someone's room and pulling their clothes out into the trees. If it's true, I can imagine how delighted the owners must have been.

Go forward six decades and Singapore is the model of a perfect city. With a mere four million local inhabitants, expat workers from all over the globe, and we tourists, it's no doubt changed significantly.

It's one of the neatest, cleanest cities I have seen only degraded by Little India that smelled and looked just like Big India. By comparison, Chinatown is much better kept.

We stayed at Robinson Quay and managed to do a Lot of walking with several inexpensive train rides and a tour. Near to us was the nightclubbing area filled with dozens of expensive restaurants, offers of high priced, but said to be discounted, buckets of beer. A 330ml bottle of local Tiger beer cost me $10 AUD. Later I bought a couple of tins of beer - 500ml for just over $5AUD each - Anchor, another local 500ml. A huge difference.

Wine is expensive in restaurants but cheaper bottles are available in specialist wine outlets and 7 Eleven stores. I bought two bottles to take on, the ship, a Jacobs Creek and a bottle from Chile.

So, the long and short of this is that it's expensive there for many things, but there are options to buy cheaper if one looks around.

It was more humid than we prefer and that goes with the territory so no use complaining about it. One just has to grin and bear it with frequent fluid intake, showers and change of clothes. Isn't that what the locals do?

If I was still young enough to work, spending a couple of years teaching something within my disciplines would be a high consideration because Singapore is so close and central to the rest of Asia. And such a nice place.

Needless to say, I took numerous photos of Singapore's iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the three towers with a ship-like structure supported on top. It was also part of our tour.

Unfortunately, I've been unable to place them in the blog, but am working on a way to do so. See my related post.

Robin