India: Kochi

Kochi is a small Indian city of 'only' 2 million inhabitants. The most interesting is the old fort area by the hands of the Portuguese and the Dutch. The fort is reachable by bridge or ferry (recommended!). Meanwhile you can see the polluted water covered with lotus flowers, one of India's national symbols (the flower that is).

The colonists brought Christianity with them, together with some very nice churches. In one of them, the St. Francis Church, Vasco Da Gama was buried for 15 years before being shipped back to Portugal. In the water I see strange wooden constructions. These are the Chinese fishing nets, an outdated technique requiring 4 people to lift.

Taking the busy market road, I see every imaginable product being hauled to trucks while goats are watching and blocking the traffic. The road ends at the Jewish quarter, including a synagoge and shops. Unintentionally funny signs want to lure me inside to buy something, but I carry on to the Dutch Palace. Don't let its unimpressive outside fool you, inside you'll find a wealth of beautiful murals, royal clothing and photographs.

Seeing all these fancy royal outfits makes me want to have one of my own. I go to Seematti, a huge clothing store. Every level has a different price range, with the cheapest garbs at the ground floor. Being a white guy but arriving all scruffy looking, the attendants don't know what think of me. But once they hear the word 'suit', everything changes and I'm sent up to the highest (4th) floor. With eight pampering salesmen around me, I try on a wide variety of suits. Very fun, but I cannot take them all, so I settle for one, which sets me back only 80 euros.

The next day, there's a visit to the Backwaters, a series of rivers and lakes surrounded by jungle. It's an unique environment, but not very exciting...  so I'm not really sad to leave in the afternoon to catch the train while my India and yoga loving companions continue the second part on an even smaller boat.

Indian Railways is one of the biggest companies of the world. 1,4 million employees, 115,000 km of tracks and 23 million daily passengers. Today, I'm one of them.

The train is PACKED. I took a sleeper ticket, but it's nothing like the night trains in Russia or Finland. The cabins contain 6 'beds' but are open. So a lot of regular passengers are standing inside talking and laughing and giving me spicy nuts. Some can speak a little English and start the typical conversation (which is always in this order: Where are you from? What do you do for work? What did you see in India?). The train stops a lot, which is really unpleasant because of the toilet in the neighbouring car. Only when the train moves the smell of urine is bearable. A few hours later, most passengers have gotten out and it's time to sleep. One guy accidentally wakes the grumpy monk in our cabin and apologises by giving him a massage. The 'beds' are very hard benches, without any linen. But I can sleep a few hours until the train sounds it's horn for some cows blocking the track. No more sleep after this, but soon I reach my final destination, Bangalore!