2011 India, Kochin

Kochin turned out to be rather nice.
Leaving the bus we caught an autorickshaw to the port to catch the ferry over to the island where we were staying. We spent some time getting some name bracelets made up for the girls by a young girl who is only 10 or so herself.

A shore ferry ride of 20-30 mins later we went on an autorickshaw to our hotel which turned out to be very nice and clean.

After a shower we walked sown into the quaint little town that has a lot of colonial era houses and massive acacia trees everywhere to shade you from the intense 35+ degree heat.
We ate at a small local restaurant and the two young guys running it spent ages playing with the girls. They insisted on going there everyday after that of course, but the food was pretty good and offered pasta and noodles which was a welcome break from the Indian food.

From there a quick stroll across a lovely shaded park and you're on the seashore where they have the Chinese fishing nets, which are quite impressive crane like structures with a massive scoop net that is lowered into the water.
Apparently, they can lift a 200 lb load using a cantilevered counter weight system.
You could buy the catch and have it cooked on the spot.

That night we went to a traditional Karnatikan dance and kind of theatre.

You first watch them going through this incredibly elaborate process to put make up on.
Then there was some quite impressive dancing by young women.

The highlight though was a session where a guy came out and sat on a chair  and went through a routine showing all the combination of facial expressions and some hand gestures which actually from a kind of language. It was very amusing.
Subsequent dance by the man used a lot of this as well to tell a story.

The next day we arranged a trip to see the elephants being bathed.
Another surly driver turned up around 6 am and drove us for about 1-2 hrs to this big river where the elephants lie and got sot thoroughly groomed with coconut shell scrapers and hard brushes, which seemed bliss for them. The girls managed to touch them a but and help feed them bananas, but it turned out you can no longer go for a rides on them which is what we'd expected.
We couldn't understand exactly but it sounds like some sort of risk of disease, not sure if for people or elephant.
A bit annoying because the places selling the tickets all have photos showing people riding them so was a bit deceptive.

After their bathe we followed the elephants down the road to where they're kept and went through this horrendously badly kept zoo.
It was very distressing to see jungle cats, giant squirrels, monkey etc in shit covered cages so small that I doubt they could turn around in them.
Bird cages full of eagles and owls etc were no better.

Grumpy driver then entertained us all the way back with constant tooting of the horn(more than the standard rate) and really piss poor driving. Eunmi was getting quite stressed in the end.