Arriving in Kochi

In all honesty, Kochi is a bit of a shithole.

It's the biggest city in the south of the country, and when you look around the place, it's very easy to be reminded of the fact that India is the world's second most polluting industrialised nation after China. Everything that is waste here is piled on the side of the road and/or set on fire. The acrid black smoke mixes with Diesel fumes, pungent, spicy aromas and a faint background odour of fish to create a bewildering yet strangely familiar atmosphere, thick and permeating.

I decide to stay in Fort Cochin, a supposedly prettier, less built-up area of town, so as soon as i left the airport i hail a cab. It takes an hour or so to get to my hostel, a ramshakle building on a quiet street within walking distance of whatever The Rough Guide deems worth seeing in the area. The room is basic but has an en-suite, AC and a comfortable teak bed. I'm way too tired to start lugging by rucksack around in search of a better deal, so i agree to the extortionate (by Indian standards) rate and unpack.

After a shower, I walk down to the seafront to have a look round, but it's getting dark and seems quite quiet. There are huge fishing nets dotted along the seafront - massive catapult-like cantilever devices that, when operated by 5 or 6 men pulling ropes and setting pulleys, lower and raise a net about the size of a tennis court in and out of the water. The place reeks of fish, and not in a nice oh-smell-that-fresh-bracing-sea-air way. Men display their days catches under gaslit tarpaulins while hungry cats and flocks of noisy crows gather in wait for any unattended or discarded scraps. You can buy a fish from one guy and the guys at the next stall will cook it for you. Surprisingly enough though, nobody, not even the locals appear to be buying or eating anything that's on display.

I get bitten senseless by mosquitos, reminding me that i haven't bought any anti-malarial drugs yet. My doctor in London told me that it wasn't the right season for mosquitos, so i didn't bother. Thinking back, she also told me that the secret to long, healthy life, was not wearing shoes, so I'm not sure how much i should trust her. I still have stitches buried in my arm that she failed to remove from the last time i saw her.

I decide to grab some food and unadventurously opt for a vegetable curry, heading back to crash out. It's been a long day and i've not really slept much in the last 40 hours. I think it's about 8pm.