10th March – COCHIN
Today we visited Cochin, the first of two cities in India. We must confess that when booking our cruise excursions, we were not looking forward to these two stops. However, both cities were full of surprises and vast contrasts between the rich and the poor, an experience that we are glad we had.
Cochin is a relatively small city in the south of India and after boarding our air-conditioned coaches???? (i.e. they left the windows open) in temperatures up to 36degrees, hot and very humid, we drove round the narrow streets of the city with the driver having his hand permanently on the horn (as is the norm in India). We passed many of the local houses – ranging from the relatively smart bungalow type houses to corrugated shacks, and everywhere you looked there was rubbish lying around. However, also everywhere you went there were women sweeping up the dust and the rubbish from in front of their houses. So how come Cochin looked such a tip.
After a tour of the town we drove to the beach area where we saw the fishermen fishing, using Chinese fishing nets. These are huge contraptions used to scoop the fish out of the sea – see photograph. Geoffrey was invited by the locals to help them lift the net out of the water.
We visited the synagogue and Dutch Palace, after which we walked along a main shopping market area, where I am afraid Doreen could not resist and kept disappearing inside shops and having to be rescued by Geoffrey from the persistent sales people. After running the gauntlet of street salesmen we went to the boatyard to board a small cruise boat for a 1.1/2hour interesting cruise around the harbour. Here we saw the local fishermen landing their catch, women preparing shrimps/prawns on the quayside, the site of the new container terminal, past the high rise financial centre before returning to the luxury of a proper air-conditioned cruise ship.
12th March – MUMBAI
By contrast Mumbai was a huge city of 24 million people. Again full of contrasts. This time we boarded a proper air-conditioned coach for our tour of the city and our first stop was the famous Taj Mahal Hotel and Gateway of India (which unfortunately was under repair and clad in scaffolding). We then drove around various landmarks again with the driver’s hand permanently on the horn as he drove amongst the thousands of yellow and black cabs. We stopped at Gandhi’s home, which is now a museum housing interesting artefacts of his life. We then visited the Dhobi Ghat where local people come to wash their clothes in open air troughs (despite the advent of modern washing machines). This was an unbelievable sight, with thousands of people washing clothes in the traditional way and laying out the clothes on roofs, on lines and anywhere they could dry them. On route to this we passed a slum area of ramshackled corrugated shacks with young children running beside the coach begging for money (a very disturbing sight).
The trip ended with a brief visit to the Prince of Wales Museum before returning to our ship.
Summary
Our brief visit has given us an insight into the life of India, a country of one billion people, growing at the rate of 20 million people per year. Despite the poverty we saw everyone we came in contact with, whether street traders, tour guides, the master of our cruise boat were all well educated and extremely polite and interesting to talk to. One thing Doreen wants to add is that she still doesn’t know whether or not she got a bargain, because everything one bought you had to barter for, and although you felt you did well you are never really sure, but it was good fun nonetheless.
Today we visited Cochin, the first of two cities in India. We must confess that when booking our cruise excursions, we were not looking forward to these two stops. However, both cities were full of surprises and vast contrasts between the rich and the poor, an experience that we are glad we had.
Cochin is a relatively small city in the south of India and after boarding our air-conditioned coaches???? (i.e. they left the windows open) in temperatures up to 36degrees, hot and very humid, we drove round the narrow streets of the city with the driver having his hand permanently on the horn (as is the norm in India). We passed many of the local houses – ranging from the relatively smart bungalow type houses to corrugated shacks, and everywhere you looked there was rubbish lying around. However, also everywhere you went there were women sweeping up the dust and the rubbish from in front of their houses. So how come Cochin looked such a tip.
After a tour of the town we drove to the beach area where we saw the fishermen fishing, using Chinese fishing nets. These are huge contraptions used to scoop the fish out of the sea – see photograph. Geoffrey was invited by the locals to help them lift the net out of the water.
We visited the synagogue and Dutch Palace, after which we walked along a main shopping market area, where I am afraid Doreen could not resist and kept disappearing inside shops and having to be rescued by Geoffrey from the persistent sales people. After running the gauntlet of street salesmen we went to the boatyard to board a small cruise boat for a 1.1/2hour interesting cruise around the harbour. Here we saw the local fishermen landing their catch, women preparing shrimps/prawns on the quayside, the site of the new container terminal, past the high rise financial centre before returning to the luxury of a proper air-conditioned cruise ship.
12th March – MUMBAI
By contrast Mumbai was a huge city of 24 million people. Again full of contrasts. This time we boarded a proper air-conditioned coach for our tour of the city and our first stop was the famous Taj Mahal Hotel and Gateway of India (which unfortunately was under repair and clad in scaffolding). We then drove around various landmarks again with the driver’s hand permanently on the horn as he drove amongst the thousands of yellow and black cabs. We stopped at Gandhi’s home, which is now a museum housing interesting artefacts of his life. We then visited the Dhobi Ghat where local people come to wash their clothes in open air troughs (despite the advent of modern washing machines). This was an unbelievable sight, with thousands of people washing clothes in the traditional way and laying out the clothes on roofs, on lines and anywhere they could dry them. On route to this we passed a slum area of ramshackled corrugated shacks with young children running beside the coach begging for money (a very disturbing sight).
The trip ended with a brief visit to the Prince of Wales Museum before returning to our ship.
Summary
Our brief visit has given us an insight into the life of India, a country of one billion people, growing at the rate of 20 million people per year. Despite the poverty we saw everyone we came in contact with, whether street traders, tour guides, the master of our cruise boat were all well educated and extremely polite and interesting to talk to. One thing Doreen wants to add is that she still doesn’t know whether or not she got a bargain, because everything one bought you had to barter for, and although you felt you did well you are never really sure, but it was good fun nonetheless.
No comments:
Post a Comment