I’m not much liking early starts and today we were up again at the Crack fo Doom to be ready for our transfer to Cochin (Kochi). We have along drive ahead of us , not so much because of the distance but from the road, a very good road indeed in terms of the surface but hardly a straight road of more than about three hundred metres the whole way.

There’s really not much to be said about a long, five hours drive. You look from one side to another until you get a stiff neck and you try not to drop off to sleep too often but it is what it is and it’s a long drive.

The early part through the hills was interesting as we went through large areas of tea gardens which appear to be thriving and absolutely cover the hillsides, even very steep hillsides, right up to quite surprising heights. Here’s Mrs Sixwheeler inspecting one tea garden and another picture showing how tightly they cover the hillside and you will notice how misty it was up there.

We took a short stop for a comfort break and something to drink, we both had a nutmeg, ginger and lemon drink which was absolutely gorgeous. And then we continued and stopped a while later to have a look at a rubber plantation

only when we got there did I realise that I had absolutely no idea what a rubber tree looked like and was surprised as I had always imagined them to be more palm like; you learn something new every day.

As we got further down we were amazed by the numbers of huge houses both old and new along the road, there’s obvioulsy some money about somewhere. And finally we rolled into the traffic jam that is Cochin an historically important port city that still has very large container and oil terminals.

We are staying at the Old Harbour Hotel which we first visited four years ago and very much enjoyed. We were relieved to have arrived and dropped our bags off and enjoyed a late lunch followed by a bit of a walk about some of the local shopping streets in Fort Cochin which is the oldest part of the city going back to the time of occupation by the Dutch, I took a couple of photos as it was approaching dusk of the famous Chinese Fishing Nets and sunset over the estuary from Fort Cochin beach.

6 February 2019