Well it's been awhile since I did an update but Iv'e decided to combine Cochin and Mumbai because Cochin was a big disappointment and not a place I would recommend it as a place to visit.
I'm sorry but when you go to a town in India I don't expect a tour that talks all about the occupation by the Portuguese, Dutch and British and all you really see is buildings and churches of the aforementioned. The highlight of the day was sitting in a restaurant above the throng people watching whilst have a fantastic lunch.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to show you a photo of our cruise ship the Ocean Princess

We did walk along the beach a came across some Chinese fishing nets.

We left Cochin and sailed into Mumbai this is definitely a far more interesting town and deserves more than just a day. Unfortunately most of the places we shown we were not allowed to photograph as to westerners it does not show India in a could light.
We started the day by heading to the Gate of India which is next door to the Taj Mahal Hotel this area was location of the unfortunate terrorist attack a couple of years ago. The Taj Mahal Hotel is a beautiful hotel and the story goes that an Indian tried to enter a British Hotel during British rule and was refused entry. This man then vowed to build a bigger and better hotel and this was his result. The British hotel now lies derelict.

We went to the Crawford Markets was like any other market until we went into the meat section and this was one place we could not take photos. It was disgusting and very surreal. When we walked in the door the first thing you noticed was the hundreds of ravens in the rafters. There was no refrigeration and the placed was caked in over a 100 years of congealed blood and dirt and bird droppings. The butchers wore ordinary street clothes and no rubber gloves. All scraps were thrown into the aisles and swept into piles, hence all the ravens. It was quite sickening.
Anyway we headed to Gandhi's residence next and whilst walking along the road I noticed no one walking on the footpath so I hopped onto the footpath only to go about 5 paces when someone chucked some form of liquid out of the window narrowly missing. I went back to walking on the road. Anyway we quite enjoyed Gandhi's residence.

We then drove across town to the red-light district where I was not allowed to take photos. So heres a couple of pics of cows.

We then went to an open air laundry where thousands of items are sent to be laundered. I don't now how clean the items would be after witnessing one man pee where he was standing.

We then traveled to the Dharvi slums this was a fascinating walk through an area about 1.8km square containing over a million people. It is an area full of hundreds of work shops, each no bigger than 3m wide and 6m deep and no ventilation. The recycling of aluminium, paint cans and plastics was particularly interesting in that the melt all these items in these work shops on open fires with no personal safety equipment. Consequentially theses workers have a life expectancy of 45 years.
Anyway this bloq has turned out quite long and I don't wish to bore you to much but we saw a lot more than I've mentioned. As I've said definitely worth a re-visit.
Next stop Dubai.