Some things you just cant explain. Today was beautiful; I witnessed something that even if you tried to explain it, it wouldn’t be possible. Its just one of those things. We had a remarkable guide that joined us in the morning to show us in and around Cochin, starting with Fort Cochin which is part of Old Cochin.
First we went to a beautiful St Francis church, which is said to have been built in the early sixteenth century. Vasco da Gama was buried here after he died from Malaria but 14 years later his son returned his remains and buried him in Portugal. The ceiling of the Church is designed to look like the hull of a ship and is spectacular. Next we went to the fish mark
et where we were suddenly ambushed by hundreds of sales men who had all sorts of things. We eventually bought a couple things, did a run, jump and dive into the taxi and drove off.
Then to calm Nancy down after she nearly went insane from the ambush we popped into a coffee shop with the most delicious chocolate cake in the world.
From there, once Nancy had stopped shaking, we headed off to do some good ol’ fashioned shopping. As we arrived at the first shop, which is a Woman’s Organisation Shop we
were greeted with some Cardamom tea in a little shot glass and some cashews. We ended up spending far too much money but was lovely all the same.
Finally to end off the tour, Rajesh took us to a temple. As we arrived we took our shoes off and silently looked in and around the temple which was designed to the last golden detail. There were hundreds of pigeons all over the place, on the roofs, floor and temple, everywhere. Rajesh was watching his watch every few seconds and finally told us to stand close to a huge slab of cement. Suddenly a man started walking towards us, and hit a bucket once shouting out to the pigeons. In split seconds every single pigeon that was in that temple took flight, all in the same direction, and circled the top of the temple exactly
three times before settling at the priests feet on the slab of cement. He said another prayer for them and they all waited patiently for their food. After a while the seeds were handed to us and they landed on our hands to eat. Normally in Cape Town when some idiot throws a chip in the air at the harbour you can think of nothing worse, but this experience was something out of this world.
It turns out that our guide was previously a Hindu Priest but now studies Buddhism and on our way home he turned to us and apologised if he was crossing the line, and proceeded to verbalise my every feeling. He hit a nerve, a good one, it was scary how much he knew. He then gave me some amazing advise and I am working on that right now.
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