Kochi airport

Sitting in the gate lounge on Republic/Australia Day. We’re on the way back to Chennai, hoping there will be fireworks, parades, brass bands and such waiting for us on India’s and our national holiday.

Wednesday we managed to squeeze ourselves into the last Kerala backwaters cruise before the transport strike. This involved an hour’s dramatic driving, a banana-leaf’s worth of lunch, several hours’ very peaceful floating along waterways lined with palm trees, dropping in on a lime factory and a coir factory, then an hour’s return journey at breakneck speed through the thickening evening traffic Then (hi, Carson!) dinner in the rooftop restaurant of the hotel.

Yesterday the transport strike meant that Kochi was a very good place to wander around. We saw elephants, an art exhibition, and the North Indian Craft Fair at the TDM Hall, which was hardly TDS at all, her-her. But it was a lot smaller than the excited advertorial in the Indian Express led us to believe it would be. Indian journalism is all about making the world more brightly coloured, just like Indian textiles, Indian advertising and Indian plastics.