Cochin (1) - Day 1

This is a link from my blog about my trip to India in 2014
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david63
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Cochin (1) - Day 1

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Post by david63 »

Today we set off on the final leg of our trip – although it is by no means over. We left Periyar for Cochin which is about a five hour drive through some of the tea plantations in southern India. The whole countryside in this part of southern India is just so much different from the north of India – it is just so much more luxuriant with, as I said, tea, pineapples, coconuts, grapes, spices of all kinds and much, much more.

There are so many differences between the north and the south of India that it is difficult to know where to start. Firstly the south is lagging some way behind the north in embracing tourism in that it is clear that more money is being “poured” into the north to improve the infrastructure with many new roads having, or are in the process, of being built. Also there is a major shortage of “quality” hotels in the south. Another problem is that in the south they do not, in general, speak/understand English as well as they do in the north.

There are, however, several things where the south outperforms the north with the most prominent being the level of education. In the south the average number of children attending school is well up in the 90%+ level (with some areas claiming 100%) whereas in the north it is only around the 70% mark.

Another good point about the south is that it is much calmer and the pace of life is also that much more relaxed. Also the traffic is nowhere near as manic in the south!

We eventually arrived at the hotel and not having been in the place five minutes the heavens opened and it poured down for about an hour which prevented us from going out. Once the rain had stopped we ventured out as we wanted to see the famous Chinese fishing nets which are some weird old engineering construction which are used to lower and raise large fishing nets into the lake in the hope of catching some fish. The system obviously works looking at the amount of different varieties of fish that are for sale around these fishing nets.

Tomorrow we set off for our mini cruise on the backwaters for three nights/four days.

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oldbluefox
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Re: Cochin (1) - Day 1

#2

Post by oldbluefox »

What's the food like?

When we were in Sri Lanka we got plenty of rice and not so much 'curry'. However there was so much flavour in the 'curry' that you only needed a little so it complemented the rice perfectly.


Ray Scully
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Re: Cochin (1) - Day 1

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Post by Ray Scully »

We thought the Chinese fishing contraptions where now just a tourist prop and that the fish had been bought in from the local Billingsgate :-)

Ray

p.s enjoying your posts

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