Day 105, Year 5: World’s Best Shopping
Date: Monday, February 8, 2010
Weather: Sunny, but Hazy; Temps in the 80’s;
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Panama was great for shopping, but I think India is better. Fresh fruits and vegetables in the open markets are unbelievably cheap. There are plenty of eggs, egg plant, cauliflower, red and green peppers, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, green beans, snap peas, cabbages (both red and green), pumpkins, parley, mint, cilantro, potatoes, red onions, and a host of local produce that we can’t name. There are oranges of all kinds, limes, bananas, grapefruit, pomegranates, pineapples, and even strawberries And it seems you can fill your backpack for somewhere between $2 to $4 US. It’s a great bargain. Today we went into Cochin for lunch are our newest, most favorite place to eat, Saravana Bhavan, and met up with Ed and Lynne of Constance. After a fantastic Indian lunch we strolled down Market Road and just oogled at all the goodies in the different shops. There are shops that sell only eggs (duck and chicken), other shops that sell only potatoes and onions, shops for buying fishing supplies, and hardware stores that sell AAA batteries for 5 rupees each. Mark bought twenty for the price of eighteen which was less than $2 US for all twenty. Ed searched every shop for good red onions. He checks every one and buys only the best. Once he has supplied Constance with onions for the months ahead, I am going to ask him to pick onions for Windbird. He has the knack. There are shops that sell only Basmati rice and other shops that sell other types of rice. And then we came to the REAL food market with the array I described at the beginning. We found a thread shop that sold thread and elastic in all widths. We had searched Malaysia and Thailand for elastic and were so happy to find this shop. I bought 10 meters of one width, 5 of another, and 2 of another width, and the total cost was less than $2 US. I love it. And then there are shops that sell only silk and others that sell a wonderful variety of materials. We just walked away the afternoon looking at all the shops and the goodies found within. When you can shop ’til you drop and spend less than $5 US, it’s a great afternoon.
I spent my morning researching southern India and trying to narrow down the places and special events we will try and see while we are here. As soon as I have an itinerary, I will share that, but for now all I will say is that it is going to be very difficult to make the choices. Southern India is filled with spectacularly beautiful places to see and festivals to experience. We have been here almost two weeks and haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. So we are going to be busy tourists in the next three weeks.
Mark spent his morning fixing the leaks in the forward head. So far, so good with the patching of the leaks in the aft head, so he thought it prudent to continue the repairs. We are still waiting to hear if we can buy a new marine toilet here. We thought the answer was yes, but we still have not seen one. And we spent part of our afternoon battling with PayPal on the internet. We need to pay for the new refrigeration compressor that we found in the UK through PayPal, but since we have not used our account for four years, we are having to prove who we are and that we actually have the funds. This process could take the rest of this week, so the shipping of the compressor has been delayed. Hopefully this will all be settled by the end of the week and we will have the compressor by the end of next week.
So . . . repairs and plans for touring are moving along. In the meantime, we are just enjoying being in this incredible part of the world
