First day in India

What will it be like?  Do they still wear saris?  Will there be cows wandering around?  How dirty will it be?

Eight or more Indian immigration officers got on board the ship to take us through a face-to-face immigration process -- they stamped a disembarkation card and an "official" copy of our passport.  And then we were free to go out.  Unfortunately, Will was under the weather, and I was sure not going to be wandering around alone.

Emily and her 3 kids (ages 2,4, and 7) and Eric and his two kids (4 and 8) were going to look for a park while their spouses worked on the ship (student life and field programs), so I joined the kid trek.  Leaving the ship, we were bombarded by 20 taxi drivers wanting to take us somewhere, anywhere.  We went inside a completely empty terminal building and spoke to the one person there about taking a ferry from the port island to the Old Fort Cochin.

We were pointed in the right direction to walk a short distance to the ferry dock.  As we passed the fence at the edge of the terminal area, we were bombarded by 20 more taxi drivers.  Most of the drivers were promoting their "tuk tuk" or motorized rickshaw.  These are 3-wheel vehicles that can hold two (or 6) people plus the driver.  As we worked to turn them away, they said the ferry was not running because it wasSunday.  When we did not buy that line, they said it was not going to come for 2 hours.  We sat quietly and patiently waiting for the ferry.

In 20 minutes, we were on the ferry, and a ticket person on board charged us 4 rupee per adult (and nothing for the kids).  That amounts to about a nickle.  As we were getting off at the same time that people were boarding, we entered into a swarm of saris -- answering the sari question right away.

After a short distance we came to Chinese fishing nets -- large nets that are dipped into the water, left there a little while, then lifted to bring up small river fish.  The booms holding the net are heavy, so there is a counterweight system consisting of ropes tied to create a string of rock.  These were also of interest to tourists from India, and even from other parts of Kochi.  They found us interesting, and we mutually took pictures.  I also handed out some Washington, D.C. postcards.

Wandering on, we came to a children's park.  Because it was Sunday, a lot of kids, accompanied by their parents, were playing there, and our 5 were glad to join in.  As in Myanmar, there were a few feral dogs who wandered through.  Unlike anywhere I have ever been, a goat wandered through too!  The kids especially liked the equipment that spun around.  I was particularly impressed with the wonderful colors of the clothes of the women and daughters in the park.

After that we looked for an ATM.  On the way the sidewalk was blocked by a couple of goats, and there were several more in the street.  So we did not see a cow wandering around, but goats seemed more to scale anyway. There was a fellow outside the ATM who indicated that it did not work, and that he could change our money.  Turned out, no big surprise, that it was working just fine.  After a couple of shopping stops, we made a snack and bathroom stop.  At that point a couple of fellows in the Indian Navy came by and wanted their pictures taken with the kids!

To return to the ship, we walked back to the ferry dock.  On this end, it was quite crowded and there were long ticket lines.  We were gradually made to understand that there were separate ticket lines for men and women.  We asked about the leaving time for our island and got aboard.  It stopped at a different place than we left from , and we asked if it would go to the other side of the island.  Some misunderstanding there.  It went instead to the mainland -- where we had to get off and buy 3 more 4 rupee tickets for our return.  Its next stop was on our island  -- although not where we had left from.  It turned out to be only a short walk from there to the ship.