By Danielle Murphy, Semester at Sea, Spring 2017
Over 1 billion people live, work and find pride in the amazing country of India. As it being so large it can be difficult to decide what to do if you are only given a day, especially when we don’t want to waste a day with simply traveling. My recommendation would be to go to a tourism organization and try to set up a backwater tour. The term backwater is meant as a low current area of a river that has branched off of the main route making it ideal for leisure rides with canoes, kayaks or even houseboats. With a backwater tour in Kochi you will experience a small village hard at work. The harvesting of coconuts is a main source of profit for these villagers as they use it to make rope, cups, pipes, oils, pastes and so on to sell in the city and to tourists. As the tour moves along you get to see how they make nearly every item. About half way through you will most likely be fed a banana leaf meal. With this meal is a pile of rice in the middle with around 8 curries surrounding it. You will be prompted on how to eat it but all you do is mix it all together then eat it with you right hand.
