Today I took another ‘highlights of’ tour: Highlights of Cochin. We visited a Jewish community, visited Mattancherry Palace, visited an art gallery featuring telepathic art(have no idea what that is!), saw the Chinese cantilevered fishing nets and took a short cruise thru the harbor.
At one point in the tour as we were walking on the street to the harbor cruise I felt like the pied piper. I had purchased something from a street vendor so all the vendors were following me asking me to purchase something.
At many of the places/countries we have visited on this cruise, the number ONE industry is tourism. Not only were they sick but they lost significant income during the COVID years. They have all said they are slowly recovering and were happy to see us. They get money from tourists from hotel stays(hotel & staff get money), transportation(drivers, mechanics, tour guides get money), food(grocery stores and restaurants and their staff get money) and from selling souvenirs(shop workers, souvenir makers get money).
We had to remove our shoes in the temples/churches we visited today- not for religious reasons but to preserve the old tile floors!
There were motorcycles all over the place- some carried 1 passenger and some carried more. The most I saw were 3 passengers. They also carried produce, lumber, pipes, sheet metal or whatever else needed transporting. Everyone drove motorcycles- young, old, men, women. Some wore helmets and some didn’t.
We had some rain today after we got back to the ship and were having our high tea.
