To do justice to this 4 day overland tour to the Taj Mahal is going to take some time and effort but like the trip itself it will be worth every second to act as a memento of the sights, sounds and magnificence of India and all its teeming life! So bare with me as I recount this adventure, which has to be one of the most memorable in my life.
We arrived in Cochin to heavy rain so it was a bit of a struggle disembarking with cases and hand baggage for our flight to Delhi after lunch. It wasn’t made any easier by the very uneven surface on the dockside where deep puddles of filthy red water had accumulated. I later found out that this part of the port is being converted to a cruise terminal from a container port.
Cochin is the cosmopolitan capital of Kerala and is sometimes referred to as the ‘Queen of the Arabian Sea’. It is a city of peninsulars and islands with a mainland centre. It has a magnificent natural harbour almost in the middle of the city created by underwater mud banks of the Malabar River. It is one of India’s largest ports and major naval base.
Cochin has been a trading post since Roman Times, if not before, and was on the main trade routes between Europe and China. Arabs, Portuguese, Dutch and British ships followed the sea route to Cochin and each have left their influence; winding streets crammed with 500 year old Portuguese and Dutch houses, cantilevered Chinese fishing nets, a Jewish community whose roots date back to the Diaspora – the dispersion of the Jews beyond Israel that began in the 8th – 6th centuries BC and even before the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 the number of Jews dispersed by the diaspora was greater then that living in Israel. Much as I would like to impress you with this knowledge I cannot lay claim to it but thank goodness for my faithful Kindle and the New Oxford Dictionary that it contains!
We were hardly outside the gates when the India of hooting tuck-tucks (3 wheeled taxis), poverty and affluence sitting cheek by jowl and the teeming street life hit us in all its cacophony of sound. I suppose I knew that driving in India must be one of the most hair-raising experiences possible with cars, buses, tuck-tucks, taxis, bicycles, lorries and people arriving from all angles and all seemingly wanting the same piece of space as you and all sounding their horns or bells to warn you to their imminent presence and desire to take your space!!
I tried to get some shots out of the bus window but with the heavy rain it proved difficult but here is one just to give you a feel for what my first impressions of China were like: confused, amazed but above all excited.
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