Cochin, India.

---

---

Another place for a pin, but not much else. Today it is called Kochi so you will have to look for it on the map under both names. It is on the west coast of India. We have been here before, so we did not get off the ship. You can see from the picture of where we are docked that it is not exactly a "posh" place. However, this is a city where you can find snake charmers with their little baskets and they play their flute-like instrument and the cobra comes up out of the basket and looks all around.. Granny Lynne has pictures of this in her scrapbook about our earlier visit here.

The other pictures are of a typical Indian fishing boat which we came by on our way into the harbor and an Indian naval vessel which came out to make sure that no "bad guys" were around to cause problems for the Queen Victoria.

This is our third visit to India, but it is one of my least favorite places in the world. This is a country which is growing rapidly as a world economic power but it still has a long way to go as the poverty here is frightful. Beggars abound. Women sit on the sidewalk dressed in rags and beg. That would be bad enough, but they have beside them babies or toddlers who have had their arms or legs broken deliberately at birth so that they are deformed. The beggar women have one beside them so that they can evoke sympathy. Some parents even do this to their child and then instead of begging themselves, rent out the child to other beggars. Incidentally, the deformed children used by beggars are usually girls as boys are the more prized children in Indian society.

We are off today for Mumbai or Bombay and I will have more to say about India when we get there on Thursday.

Love to all, Granddaddy and Granny Lynne






Please click on the links below for the tracking map, the Queen Victoria Bridge webcam and the Queen Victoria tracking map.

Chuck and Lynne's Satellite Tracking Map

Webcam on the Bridge of the Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria GPS Tracking Map

---