Fort Kochi--the Tour

Ft. Cochin is a funny little place. It sort of reminded me of Martha's Vineyard in a strange way, with its small winding streets and pretty little houses. Because Ft. Cochin is so small, there is really no need to drive anywhere, a fact we only realized after about 40 minutes of driving in circles with Johnson.
But, to be polite, we stuck with him for about another 90 minutes, because we hated to be killjoys. Johnson was chatty, VERY CHATTY, and wanted to keep a conversation going for the entire trip, which was much more than we could handle in our overtired states. But we wanted to give him a break, because he was so kind, and so exuberant in his driving and guiding.



He took us to the Kochi harbor, where we saw these amazing fishing nets that have been operating in the same way since the time of Kublai Khan.




We also saw this sad little guy that one of the fisherman had just caught.

His eyes follow you in every direction....


This is a small beach near Ft. Kochi. We didn't see anyone there except for fishermen. Actually, unless you are a long-time resident of India (and most times, even then), it's not safe to swim in the water (except in Goa). Many people don't have access to any type of plumbing on a regular basis, so the oceans and rivers are freely used to wash people, animals, and clothing, and as a toilet.

Johnson took us to visit some acquaintances of his who own an elephant. From what I could understand, the elephant helped the man in his work, clearing logs and other such things that required elephant-sized brawn. Every time I saw an elephant in some type of captivity, I tried not to think about it too hard. Does he look sad to you?





American garbage trucks should be this beautiful--I am ready to suggest some legislation about this.







And this is a very nice looking church










This particular Jesus lives outside of an elementary school in Ft. Kochi, with an umbrella at his disposal for sun and rain








So, we saw a lot from Johnson's rickshaw--you've seen almost everything we did before we paid Johnson his money and bid him an early goodbye. He looked very disappointed, and we felt kind of guilty for ditching him. But he was too much energy for us, in our zombie-like conditions. And we had been looking forward to walking, after all that riding around Chennai. We did have some great walks in Ft. Kochi, and I'm sure that Johnson is somewhere right now, laughing and driving people in circles, all around that town.