Post #104 - January 23, 2013 - Kochi, Kerala, India

What we did: travelled to Kochi, Ferry to Fort Cochin
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 4510R/$90

Patty here.

We woke up at 9am to eat breakfast so that we could catch up with our parents on Skype before our flight today. I spoke to my dad a bit and he told me that it has been frigidly cold in Winnipeg. Even still some how I miss the snow and the winter back at home. There's something really cozy about winter. There's nothing cozy about India, as beautiful as it is in many ways.

After breakfast and speaking with my dad I went back to the room to start packing while Jeff gave his parents a call.

Finally we're all caught up on our blogs! It has been a rough couple weeks in India what with being sick continually. Yet somehow, I am still very fond of this country. It's here I feel we have grown the most, made breakthroughs, been able to reflect on our journey and faced our biggest challenges. Up until arriving in India our travels hadn't lived up to my expectations... naive as it may seem I thought I would be constantly encountering new and exciting things that would change us and inspire us. As it turns out, it's just not that simple. You need to seek out that which you find exciting and inspiring. Before you can even do this, you need to know what it is that excites and inspires you. Finally I think we know what we're looking for - challenges, positive ones.

India can be infuriating at times. It's at those times though that I have actually felt enlightened. It reminds of the time we were carrying all our belongings from one end of a train to the other from Aurangabad to Mumbai. It took us about 20 minutes to make the trek in the heat through what felt like dozens of train cars, brushing up against masses of people everywhere including the floor. In most cases this would be extremely stressful and I guess it was. But at the same time I looked around and nobody else was stressed about it. The locals all had a zen-like cool about them. They had more important things to concern themselves with. It made me immediately aware that I was creating the stress for myself. It's little moments like that I will never forget about India.

After packing we checked out and met our non-AC taxi outside our hotel. Not having AC the whole ride was rough. The trip to the airport was a long one. It took a little over an hour to get there and then we were greeted by India's renowned chaotic and archaic processes. Even with the hotel's guidance we were running late and only arrived at the airport with less than an hour before our domestic flight. Before even checking in for our flight with "Spice Jet", we had to wait in a long and slow moving queue to have our luggage scanned through security. This took at least 20 minutes. We then got in another line to check in for a our flight. We thought that was the end of our troubles but then we were greeted by another massive line to get through more security. Let me know point there were no signs anywhere directing people to their respective lines and in good Indian fashion there was nobody to ask because all of the workers were in big clumps just chatting away and socializing while the tourists all freaked out about where to head next. We finally figured it out and then waited in line but quickly realized we were seriously running out of time to catch our flight. We became particularly concerned when we read the notice on our boarding ticket that said doors to the plane would be closed 20 mins prior to take-off. The moment we read this we looked at the time and had 15 minutes to get through security and on the flight. We knew we weren't going to make it on the plane in that time. The line was bottle necking at a doorway and it seemed like we only moved a step forward every 2 minutes. But then here's another amusing example of India's quirks: we stopped a worker passing by to explain we were going to miss our flight and he shook his head and said "your plane won't leave without you, I assure you sir". It turned out everyone in line was on our flight. That 20 minute rule we read, wasn't a rule that anybody followed! Plus we would be departing later than expected. We waited in line and didn't get to the security guard until the scheduled departure of our flight. I was extremely stressed and irritated at this point. I knew full well we would make our flight but I was frustrated with the whole process and being out of the loop. Then there was the security guard who was so friendly to us. He didn't have a care in the world, and somehow neither did Jeff! Jeff had a friendly conversation with the guy and then we boarded a bus to our plane.

The flight was uneventful. We both felt kind of out of sorts on the ride. We read our books and just relaxed most of the way.

Upon deplaning we were slapped in the face with a serious Keralan heat wave. It is HOT in Kochi! We calculated the cheapest and most efficient way to get to our hotel which is on a island off the mainland and we hopped on a taxi and drove another 45 mins in a non-AC taxi, this time in even hotter temperatures. We were both feeling squeamish after the ride and just happy to be almost at our homestay. We then hopped on an old ferry for 10 rupees and arrived on Fort Chochin. We were immediately greeted by a nice guy who arranged an autorickshaw ride to our hotel for 30 rupees. The autorickshaw driver was less than pleased with the price the nice guy quoted us. The guy who made the arrangement for us laughed and told us the driver was mad at him. We had a good laugh and told him that at the very least we liked him. The taxi driver was a nice guy too and gave us advice for our stay in Kochi. We ended up paying him 40 rupees like he wanted and he gave us sincere smile of gratitude.

We then met Mr. Christopher Walton. He is the owner of our hotel/homestay and quite the host. He welcomed us into his office which is also a library and right away we felt at home, like we were staying with someone's grandparents. It was a really nice feeling to be taken care of like that. He gave us 3 maps, drew out the paths to each place he recommended. He advised us to get bug spray and a flashlight. For once we had all our answers without having to ask. He was completely open with us. This is uncommon in India. Most service providers tell you as little as possible and leave as much as possible ambiguous usually so that you spend more money. Needless to say, it was a wonderful first impression of Kochi and Kerala. We finally felt like we could trust someone.

Mr. Walton walked us to our room, showed us how to turn on the AC and the hot water (something nobody else has done for us). We told him we had some laundry and he said that if we dropped it off that night we would have it by tomorrow evening. This was glorious news! At Sun Village, the 3-star hotel we paid and arm and a leg for, we waited 48 hours and had to fight to get it done before we checked out even though it clearly states on the laundry sheet that laundry gets done in 24 hours!! We both agreed Mr. Walton's place was the best value we have seen for our money in India. We are only paying 1600 rupees a night and this includes a homemade breakfast. Homestays are where it's at. We'll be doing more of these.

We had an amazing dinner at a place called Casa Linda which is recommended by Lonely Planet and Mr. Walton. It served superb Keralan seafood. I ordered the Coconut Shrimp and Jeff had the fish Moliee. We also had lime rice and a seafood soup. Everything was excellent. It was essentially what we had imagined and hoped Indian seafood would taste like. After the mostly mediocre seafood in Goa it was very refreshing. Again the service was very good here too.

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After dinner we decided to head to the internet cafe next door to our homestay and we ordered some passion fruit and chocolate brownie gelato in return we got free wifi and Jeff worked on the blog.

We got back to the room, we had wonderful showers in the shower facilities in our room - you travel for 4 months and start enjoying the little things like evenly sprayed water with easily changeable temperatures. These things become luxuries. We watched the end of Hook, the movie, and tried falling asleep. Jeff was too cold, I was too hot. Jeff was getting grumpy, I was restless. I kept tossing and turning. Then I had an exciting idea for a business that I couldn't stop thinking about. I woke Jeff up and slapped him by accident due to my difficulty holding back my enthusiasm for my business idea. Jeff got grumpier with me until finally we decided to switch spots on the bed. We realized the AC was blowing on him not me. This was a good decision and finally we nodded off.