The traffic is a mix of trucks, cars and motorbikes. Many more cars than we had seen thus far in this part of the world.

The traditional sari was worn by most women.

Mobile stands sold all kinds of foods and drink.

The main shopping district in the new section of the city.

Mass transit is used by the majority of working people and consists mostly of busses.

LEFT...Our driver and our car for the day.

RIGHT....This is a vegetable I had never seen before.

Donna finally found a decent vegetable stand.

Every nook and cranny was used for stalls.

Dried fish anyone. The methods used to dry the fish are explained to Donna. She could hardly wait to try some.

The basket shop.

Rice comes in many varieties.

The potato women.

Lunch anyone? We decided we'd come back here for breakfast and avoid the crowd.

The markets main entrance.

This is the garbage collected that day at the market. What you cannot see is the smell. You would need much larger receptacles if you wanted to haul away the smell. It was indescribable.

Traditional forms of commercial transport were common.

These "tuck-tucks" were the local taxis.

We were told that many of these women were purchasing saris for weddings.

It was a very crowded and busy store. It was a 3 story building with hundreds of sales girls.

The traffic both vehicular and pedestrian was bumper to bumper.

The roads were sometimes under construction or poorly paved

Cochin is a major port for the Indian navy. We laughed a little at the 3 ships that we joked constituted their fleet until we remembered they had nuclear bombs.

We returned to "Jew Street" to make one last offer for a small carpet we liked.

We were told this was the home of one of the last 14 Jews still living in the city.

This is the shop we stopped at. The second floor housed a decent rug showroom.

You can tell I felt I did well.

Although not as bad as Vietnam, the traffic was often something of a heart-stopper.

The tuck-tuck depot.

At the pool that night I joked with Loren and Judy about the fake gold Rolex Loren was wearing. He later took me aside and told me it was real. Oops!!! Just kidding Loren.

Donna, Judy and Loren at poolside for a cocktail party as we departed Cochin.

Guess who?

Donna with the sea breeze in her hair. It was the first time since I met her that she let her hair get blown around. She must really like cocktail parties.

The theme of the dinner which featured massive quantities of meat was the knights of the round table. The entertainers were in costume. Although the idea at first seemed lame, the night turned out to be a lot of fun. The staff on the ship is really wonderful.