Saturday evening – very cool Cochin

What a great, great day.. Todays our first full day of vacation and it’s SO nice to get out of the city. We’re in Cochin now.. we spent the day bumming around the town with our new freind and driver Manooj. I have a ton of pictures would take me hours to insert in a narrative. I think tonight I’m going to do the reverse and post all of the pictures and comment around them. It might not be the best storytelling.. but it may give you a feel for what we’re seeing here.. and it will save me some time.

Gabe just didn’t want to wake up this morning

so.. we read the paper.. it ad this pretty accurate description of fair Bangalore. The locals all complain.. but they love it anyway

Diane was reading the Times of India.. and look what she found ! (I think we’re in the Economic Times today as well)

We checked out of the Leena and headed to the Airport. We got a late start but still managed ot get there and hour and fifteen minutes before our flight.Even so.. we barely made it because of the lonnnnnng lines

Nothing like an Uzi to keep folks nicely lined up

Our plane.. it wassn’t much but the food on our hour flight was the best I’d every had on a plane !

As we boarded they were pokeing around in the engine with a screw driver.. the guy closed the engine back up with his leatherman.. didn’t instill confidence 🙂

The flight was good and short.. Our driver, Manooj was standing there waiting for us wiht a our name on a card and a uge smile He’s goign to be great to travel with.

After a short rest at our really, really, really wonderful hotel (the Old Harbor in Fort Cochin) .. The folks at the hotel gave us fresh coconuts to drink from when we arrived.

Our room looks out over a little playground.. and beyond that is the sea

My little yogi !

Check it out.. even looks like me !

We grabed lunch at a place across the street.. Nothing special. but they had a pet eagle (!) who eyed us watchfully through our meal.. It was beautiful

We had vistitors during our meal..

We then walked back to the park.. two little cows had found a skany fountain to play in.. Notice one of them is really smiling !

This stature appears to be a mom teacheing her kid how to pee !

We finally got down to the water.. It wasn’t fit for swimming.. but there was other cool stuff to see.. like these trafitional chineese fishing nets.. they use them in ealry morning and late afternoon to haul out large numbers of fish

A goat on a boat !

Psr tof the old battlements

We then came back to the hotel.. Here’s our little courtyard

We took a swim in there wonderful pool. Gabe and I played a bunch of ‘marcoe’ ‘polo’,, I love doing that with him

Gabe wore his skany green shir and a local guy gave it tumbs up !

The guys in the hotel use rice flour to put these symbols in every (!) corner every morning !

Manooj took us to ‘Jew Town’ the old jeewish quarter of town.. The synagoge here dates from the mid 16th century.. There are only a few jewish famiuies left..Many left for Israedl a few decades back. Still foks here respect the history and maintain the synago and the shopping district around it. There are tons of antique stores in Jew Town.. Great if you’re not carrying everything you own with you.

Here’s a hindu temple that doesn’t allow vistors

The old synaguoge tower

There’s an old cememtry nearby. The close proxmity of all these languages (English. Mayaman, and of Hebrew is pretty wierd and cool

The guy who erected this plance has basically the same last name as me.. ‘Cohen’or “Priest”.. here it is on the plague.. pretty cool

We wandered around Jewtown for a while taking in the sites

Wegot to the Synagoge.. but it was closed for shabbat.. No big deal.. the neighborhood was really what I wanted to see.

This is a Sanskrit luck symbol.. not a swastika.. but it was wierd to see it in Jewtown

The stores had soem amazing stuff.. liek this 30 foot boat

Yow !!!!

A local high school

We visited two hindu temples with Manooj..

We met this cure little girl and her dad.. she was so sweet and so shy

Then we went to the beach.. to wath the sunset.. Many folks were there because it is a holiday here for Muslims.. it’s Id… the feats that ends Ramadan (Raamzan here).. Lots of folks were out in therie best clothes sitting on the beach watching the sunset. It was a sea of people.. not my kind of beach.. but the family scene was nice

We then headed back to our hotel

..147.photobucket.com/albums/r319/johncohn/oct1307/Oct013195.jpg”>

We said goodbye to Manooj for the night

Then Diane and I took a stroll through the celibrating crowds. Look how brightly everyone is dressed !

We met these kids who wanted us to take their picture. they loved looking at it on the camera.. It’s not a novely..Everone here has digital cameras.. I think we were the novelty.