Namaste,
Well yes, I concede that I have been rather tardy on the blog writing front – I’m going to blame that on account of being fully immersed and present in all the happenings of India.
Since the vlog from Goa, we have travelled to Kochi in Kerala, Chennai and then onto Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu, then we flew up to Bangaluru and travelled inland to Hampi in Karanataka, and right now - I am sitting in the Hotel lobby wearing all the clothes I own in Darjeeling (currently 11 degrees at 4.45pm, inside) in the Himalayan Mountains in West Bengal. Stuff of fairytales, right?
But first – Kerala. We stayed in a little place called Vypin on a peninsula opposite Fort Kochi, and after staying in Old Goa it was just the reset we needed. It was quiet, rather fancy as a full sprawling cottage with a big kitchen, lounge, master bedroom and two enormous bathrooms to choose from with all the hot water one could ever need.
To get to Vypin, one could either take the expensive very flash fast ferry, or you could travel on the local ferries (which we termed “ferry alt light”) which was entertaining, still did the job and was extremely cheap. Oftentimes you had to clamber from your ferry onto another ferry and then navigate across that one to get out onto the pier.
We spent a little bit of time in Fort Kochi, but found it to be a bit of a tourist trap and was, comparative to other experiences in India so far, very expensive. The best fun though was being a walk-on passenger for the car ferry from Vypin to Fort Kochi – 6 rupees for both of us (12c NZ) and effectively twice the distance of the Ferry Landing to Whitianga Ferry in the Coromandel.
We wandered around Ernakulam, the main area of Kerala, and travelled to the Mall and on one of our days there, through to watch a movie – PONMAN – with English subtitles which we thoroughly enjoyed.
On our second to last day in Kochi, we travelled by taxi down to Alleppey and experienced a houseboat and lunch tour around through the backwaters – lots of fascinating wildlife, birds and rice plantations. As well as thousands of other houseboats to watch go past too.
We found Kochi to be really clean and easy to get around – a highlight would definitely be the Chinese fishing nets at the mouth of the Vembanad Lake between Vypin and Fort Kochi (the largest lake in India) and generally just having a few down days regrouping in lovely Vypin.
We got adventurous and took public transport – ferry, used our legs, the metro and then a shuttle bus – to Kochi Airport, before flying out to Chennai on a very, very delayed flight which landed us in the city at 2am. We then took a taxi to our accommodation for the next 2 nights near the Central Railway Station.
We did catch a public bus to the Aquarium (a micro version of Kelly Tarltons) where we both stood for 1.5 hours (each way) – we ended up with a variety of bruises from that little adventure.
After locating a Mall to wander around via the very efficient Metro system in Chennai, I also experienced my first Dosa (which has lead to many more over the past few weeks) and McDonalds furnished 2 nice coffees for 2 rather sleep deprived travellers.
And we took a trip out to the beach and St Thomas Cathedral Basilica. This is also the location of the National Shrine of Saint Thomas – the Cathedral was built over the tomb of Saint Thomas in the 16th century by Portuguese explorers.
Both of us commented on the cleanliness of Chennai, but for some reason it didn’t seem to sit very well with either of us – it may have been that our accommodation was very near the Central Train Station and the vibe was a bit raw. For example, the area was very visible with beggars (in the true sense), badly injured and maimed people, and dogs that weren’t in a good way at all. Some experiences here I found, in particular, a bit confronting and upsetting, with the divide between those that have opportunity and those that didn’t being stark in this area.
From Chennai, we tried to catch our 4 hour train to Pondicherry, and ended up in the wrong station (Central instead of Egmore). A hustled metro dash and we made it with a good 15 minutes to spare.
We shared a 3AC berth with Sebastian and Jasmine, a young rather shell-shocked and ‘possum in headlights’ looking German couple who had just arrived in India the day before and were making their way down to Nagore to attend a friends wedding. There was also a very enthusiastic bunch of Chennai-locals who were off to Pondicherry for a holiday, and invited Andrew to partake in mango juice and vodka to be part of the celebration. He didn’t need much insistence.
On arrival to Pondicherry, we bargained for a tuk-tuk to take us to our AirBnB, which promptly ran out of gas, however we eventually found our way to our accommodation near St Francis Church, handily located just north of famous White Town.
And there we shall leave it for today - Pondicherry warrants a blog post all on its own…
This featured blog entry was written by nzfrankiebeans from the blog A Life Less Ordinary.
Read comments or Subscribe
