Hotel Excellency Kochi

... strong, black coffee for about 5 cents - more if you want milk.

Our drive to Kochi was a real treat. Our hotel arranged a new car with air-conditioning and seat belts that worked. We traveled back roads most of the way. The traffic was minimal and the rural scenery was a welcome change from the chaotic main highway. We passed dozens of mini-mansions - the very nice homes of the middle class. There were a few rice ...

... We then went to Fort Cochin district, the other oldest area and stopped at a modern shop selling cashmire and woolen carpets, silks, jewellery and furniture - all very beautiful. We then went to the Indo Portugese Museum which houses religious pieces from Cochin's past - Portugese, Dutch and British. The next stop was at St Francis Church built originally in wood in 1503 and was replaced by a stone one and still used. It is India's ...

... yet found no Hindu temples. Is this an indication that this is not the "real India"? According to some regular visitors to India this is indeed the case. The "real India", they assert, lives in the village. However Gandhian this romanticisation of village life as being quintessentially Indian may be, India's lasting legacy to the world is its fluidity and its receptivity. Not only have the persecuted sought refuge in the embrace of India, but they have also contributed greatly ...

... All of them waved good morning and before moving on we had to shake all their hands! Trying to imagine this situation back home with any group of teenage lads. So far in India there has not been one situation, setting or street where we have not felt safe.

After lunch served on a banana leaf at a local eatery our guide took us to Sunset Valley Point where after a short walk along a narrow path to a rock ledge where the world just opened out in front of ...

... hotels and fewer restaurants. One place we ate at gets round this problem by taking your order for beer, hopping on the moped to buy it somewhere then serving it to you in tea mugs. 2 mugs per bottle apparently...ingenious. After about 5 days, we're both ready and glad to be leaving Fort Cochin. The break has been nice but, we're eager to move on to Bangalore where we'll be meeting up with a friend of Dara's from Dublin. We ferry back to Cochin and enjoy another ...

... India there are little Hindu temples along major highways and local alley-ways and in people's homes and everywhere else you turn. What's interesting is that they have "Hindu-ized" Christianity. So throughout Goa and so far, in Kerela, there are little Christian "temples" set up along the highways, and alleyways, and homes, etc. All of the statues of Christ and ...

... at one of the villages. A guide explained the Aruyvedic (spelling?) plants and their curing benefits that grow in the area and all their amazing cash crops. Plus how they make calcium for the Western world from the shells of their version of oysters - the flesh of which they eat and the abandoned shells which nobody would think to consume gets turned into our calcium tablets. "See, the irony!" said ...

... pilgrims returning from the Haj in Saudi Arabia. The India federal government partially subsidizes qualifying pilgrims going to Mecca ($63,000,000) but there's presently a case in court that questions the constitutionality of funding members from one religion and not another for pilgrimage purposes. Bangalore has been in the news lately due to riots spawned by crowds of Muslims protesting the hanging of Saddam Hussein. More to come. That's all for now. Dinner beckons. Salam

Remember in "Apocalypse Now" when Chef leaves the boat to get some mangoes and stumbles upon a tiger. He returns, dripping with sweat and very freaked out, screaming at the top of his lungs "Never leave the boat!" Let's just say that I have a fuller appreciation of that scene after straying off the path while walking through the jungles of Coorg. My new mantra..."Never leave the path! Never leave the path!" It's early. Out my window are the sounds of the jungle waking up. The sun is ...

... our estimated $90 a day budget although India can definitely be done for less. We met a couple from Canada who were doing it on 1000 rupees a day, which is about 20 dollars US. Not our style for sure, but incredibly it can be done. On the Topic of Food India can provide some of the greatest dining and some of the most tedious. We have had some delicious meals, especially in Delhi at places recommended by Avnish, and some thoroughly bland meals, especially in the South, which is ironic ...