We had an early-ish morning - not as bad as yesterday, but still earlier than I liked. We'd been told the train came at nine so at eight thirty we were there, and the train wasn't scheduled to come until nine forty - still, better to be early than late. With our extra time we had a breakfast of chai, poori, and vadai from a station vendor and looked through the guide books. The train ride was a little longer than expected - two and a half hours - it got stopped a lot. Once it was stopped outside a temple with a celebration going one. It was very cool to watch - there were men dancing on the backs of a pair of elephants!
In Kochi we decided to splurge a little for a nicer hotel - we even have hot water! That's a first for me in over two months. We were tired, but instead of resting we forced ourselves out and ran around town getting the lay of the land. We hit the post office, had ice cream, then walked to the waterfront. We just missed the ferry, so we had some street food, and had to wait a half hour. We took a ferry out to Cochin Fort and wandered around "Jew Town" - site of the oldest synagogue in the British Commonwealth - and a maze of several hundred year old buildings and narrow streets packed with antique stores. Some of the stores were really interesting - containing the remnants of old buildings - doors, windows, molding, furniture, etc. Interesting, but very difficult to travel with! We eventually got tired and a little bit before sunset caught a ferry back, and walked to a recommended restaurant for a great diner. On the way back we stopped in at an Internet cafe for an hour (cheaper now that we're back in a city) and I got email from the Maldives - my mystery fish was a flying Gunard - they're not supposed to be there! Then it was back to the room for a (hot!) shower - goodbye beard, my first shave since Calcutta more than two months ago!