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- Monday 7th
January 2002, Kochi
- We took a second to
and through Coonoor as we left Ooti for the
last time to travel to Kochi in Kerala. The ride
through Coonoor and beyond took us through
spectacular and often precipitious mountains and
valleys. This was pretty unnerving for us all as
the last stages of our descent from the mountains
involved many hairpin bends and close encounters
of the worst kind with buses and trucks. Whether
these were travelling in either direction seemed
not to matter as they often forced us very close
to the crumbling and precipitious road edges with
drops directly to thousands of feet below.
- So it was with
great relief after hours of apprehension to reach
the plains below. We left Tamil Nadu just before
lunchtime and crossed into the state of Kerala
whose language Malayalam is a
palendrome. (This
led to discussion on this and other palendromes.
Perhaps students could talk about these too.)
- We were told that
Kerala has an interesting recent history as it
was the first and only Indian state ever to have
a Communist government. Consequently social
justice is a real concern here.
- We reached Kochi at
around 4pm. After our bags were unloaded we had
checked into our rooms and freshened up. Now we
shared taxis to visit first the Chinese fishing
nets which are a feature of the
harbour, and also the fascinating 'ghetto' 'Jew Town', home for many
centuries of what must have been one of the most
isolated Jewish communities extant. As we walked
through its one main street we observed elderly
Jews conversing in the streets.
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