Breathe in, breathe out. We’re a little over halfway through our adventure in India – and the chaos was met with the relaxing Zen that is early morning yoga. While I unfortunately have the flexibility of stiffened concrete, the majority of my class seemed to enjoy the breathing exercises, fragrant incense, and stretching that we opened our day with. Following yoga we shoveled in a delicious buffet breakfast and headed out for the day.

 

Our first destination was the Mattancherry Palace. This was presented to the Kochi raja, or king, as a gesture of goodwill and highlighted the different royal families throughout Kochi’s history. From there we traveled to a Jewish synagogue. The inside of the building was ornamented with glass chandeliers and as we walked along the floor one could note the incredible artistic tile. The amazing thing about Judaism in Kochi is that there are only eight practicing members in the city. As you might imagine this limits some of their ceremonial abilities. Nonetheless they seem to have a decent amount of influence as evidenced by the fact that we spent the subsequent hour meandering down Jew Street and talking to a variety of vendors in search of souvenirs from India. An interesting difference between the States and India is the amount of haggling that takes place when purchasing almost anything. With some aimed determination and a firm ground one can strike some pretty good deals.

 

Our next destination was St. Francis Church, a Church built originally by the Portuguese settlers in the Kochi region. Initially, the denomination was Catholic, but after the Dutch applied their influence the Church became Protestant and to this day is kept at that way. It is also the place of the tombstone of Vasco de Gama, the first European to reach India by sailing around Africa.

 

After braving the rain that started at about midday, we made our way to a Chinese fishing trap where we rigged up the contraption and helped some locals use the machine. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen back in America.

 

Unfortunately, because of the weather we weren’t able to go to the beach as planned, but it offered us a nice reprieve from the hectic days we’ve experienced in the previous days. We traveled back to the hotel, caught a complimentary sunset cruise (even though it was overcast), and called it a night on our seventh day in the India Impact.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark