We saw this in the tourist area of Kochi, formerly Cochin. I did not ask how much it would cost. Too big to bring home!

The Kalypso Adventure Travel agency was wonderful. They took care of all the arrangements. Their website is http://www.kalypsoadventures.com/activities/Cycling-Holidays-in-India

Here is our guide, Francis.

Getting to India was a really long process, and I have to confess that I almost cancelled the whole thing because it just seemed so arduous. I flew from Mobile to New York via Atlanta and spent the night at my friend Lonnie’s house in Jersey City. I didn’t want him driving all the way to Kennedy to pick me up, so I took an Uber, which turned out to be more expensive than I anticipated but was very interesting.

Here is a shot from the first day tour of a laundry run by descendants of those moved there by the Dutch hundreds of years ago.

In New York, my driver was an Italian immigrant who, according to his account, had had a million-dollar fashion business that had been stolen away from him by his partner.

I tried to drive this Tuk-Tuk. Too small for me!

The next evening Lonnie drove me to a Marriott Courtyard near Kennedy so I would be close by for the long flight to Dubai. This flight was about 14 hours. I was very pleasantly surprised by Emirates, which had an international flight crew and an ultramodern plane, an Airbus 380. There was a seven-hour layover in Dubai, which was plenty of time to take a shower and walk around the airport, which was not as fancy as expected.

From there it was a relatively short four-hour flight to Kochi. Kochi, formerly known as Cochin, is an ancient port city on the southwest coast of India, on the Arabian Sea.

The first day, we took a ferry from the island we were staying on to the city of Fort Kochi, which does not have a fort.

The first few days were really nice and gave us a chance to look around Kochi. The majority are Hindus but here are some Moslem school children.