After arrival in Cochin, our first excursion was into the Kerala Backwaters. This is an extensive system of rivers, lakes and canals, which run for over 200 kilometers along the south west coast of India. The backwaters are home to very divers wildlifeand many people of different occupation. We saw fishermen dragging the river bed for shell fish. The shells are then used to make calcium powder in factories which burn coconut palm logs in furnaces to break down the shells. All of the trees and plants for a long way around these factories are covered in white powder. We saw men quite literally diving down to two and three meters to bring up scoops of sand for building purposes. Coconut plantations are everywhere and Toddy tappers can be heard all day long in the trees. Toddy is a local drink produced from the flower of the coconut palm. The flower is not allowed to develop into a nut and the tapers climb the trees daily and with a bone hammer they inflict a wound in the stem and catch the fliud that flows out.
We saw the manufacture of Core ropes. Core is made from the husk of the coconut. It is a fiber and the first process is to soften it by soaking for one month in water. It is then spun into a yarn in a manner similar to that used for cotton and wool.The yarns are then spun together to make ropes of various thickness. The entire coconut tree ends up being used in many processes. If you have coconut trees and a little know how, you can build a house, furnish it, make kitchen tools and eat and drink, nothing else is needed. The roof may leak a little in the rainy season though!
After our trip into the backwaters, we decided to visit Goa. This state is well known to European holiday makers. Goa was never under British rule, it remained a Portuguese Colony from around 1510 until 1961, when it was handed back to India. This makes it very different from all other Indian states. Much of the architecture is of Portuguese origin. We spent ten enjoyable days traveling around the state and looking at the major sites. It made a nice break from life onboard the boat. We decided to limit our travel to only this one state, as travel proved to be more of a problem than we had anticipated. This was mainly but not entirely due to the main school holidays begining in April. We found trains to be fully booked two weeks in advance. As all of the long distance trains are sleepers seats have to be booked. So for us it was a choice between dashing around and trying to see everything, or slowing down and enjoying the little that we did see. We chose the latter and it worked out well. Sadly there is a great deal of India that we will not be able to see on this trip, but we certainly have wetted our appetite sufficiently to make us think of a return trip in the future.
So now it is time to depart and we are going to head south to Male in the Maldives, where we plan to stay for between two weeks and one month, before heading back towards Thailand for the remainder of this year.
