Last Moving-on Day

The day (21st Feb) was supposed to be pure cycling from this hotel to the final destination in central Cochin, but town traffic was decreed too bad so a transfer took the riders to a point where quieter roads were accessed. Now that I have my FTF certificate we are way more relaxed and Anne decided that really, a flat ride into the mayhem of Cochin in 35C temperatures was not a great way to end the tour, so she kept me company in the minibus.  We now entered tourist central.  No longer was this the "real India" we had experienced over the preceding 2 weeks.  It was much more affluent (a relative term) mainly due to money sent home by the high proportion of folk who work overseas especially in UAE.  We reached the final hotel (a bit of a letdown to be honest with small rooms, flakey wifi, and a drains smell) and had a wander past all the hustlers and hawkers by the coast just round the corner.  It gave us a chance to see Cochin's famous Chinese fishing nets, but it really was far too touristy.  At 16:15 we were reunited with our bike bags.  The rest of the afternoon was spent in searing heat and filthy conditions trying to dismantle and repack the bikes (and anything else we could squeeze into the bike bag).  Happily I was recovered enough to manage this operation with Anne's help.  If my crash had happened more recently I'd have been stuffed!  It was a great relief to get this job done.  No one could face dinner in the rooftop restaurant due to the smell so Senthil the Guide used his diplomacy to get the food located to the bar across the road.  It was a relief to get to bed that night.