We thought our trip to Hampi last weekend was planned very last minute, but our trip this weekend to Kerala ended up being even more hastily planned that we ended up booking our buses through a travel agent.
The trip started off with so much stress because as we were planning to leave on Friday night on our overnight semi-sleeper bus, we realized at about 8:05pm that our bus tickets were for 8:45pm, not 9:45pm like we originally thought. So at 8:05 we set out with the impossible task of getting to the bus station an hour away. On the road, Matt called the driver and convinced him to wait for us and we luckily made it onto the bus in time and were able to grab a couple bags of chips and some bananas because we didn’t have time for a proper dinner.
The ride was reasonably smooth and when we arrived the next morning we found a rickshaw driver who was willing to take us to Fort Cochin – which we thought was going to have a fort but turned out there wasn’t a fort at all. Cochin – or Kochi as it is commonly known – is a very lovely coastal town by the Arabian Sea. My first impression of Kochi was that it really reminded me of Key West – the climate was pretty hot and humid and the palmtrees and seaside views were all very similar to the look and feel of Key West.
Because of its location by a port, Kochi was one of the first settled colonies and has very heavy Portuguese, Dutch, and British influence. Today, it is a pretty big tourist spot but still has pretty active shipping and fishing industries. The entire region in this part of Kerala is also in general known for its beautiful backwaters, a set of rivers and canals that are home to many tribal peoples and “house boats” that take tourists on daytime or overnight river cruises.
After finding a place to stay and getting settled in, we found a rickshaw driver who offer to take us around the city for only 50 rupees! It sounded too good to be true. Sure enough, he brought us to the church where Vasco de Gama, the first person to sail from Europe around the tip of Africa to India, died and was buried. We visited a Dutch Palace and some other main landmarks. After visiting all the tourist sites, the rickshaw driver started driving us to lots of commercial, specialty and antique shops. It turns out the driver gets money from these shop owners for driving tourists to the shops. Most of them were very nice, even though they sold pretty much the same things (wooden carvings, silks, tapestries, and other souvenirs), but we were happy to entertain the rickshaw drivers and go to all the shops because they were air conditioned, and the rickshaw drivers were happy because they could get their money.
One of the cool places the rickshaw driver brought us to was a ginger-processing warehouse. The minute I walked in, the strong sting of ginger filled my nose and it was mildly uncomfortable. But there were these women who were filtering the ginger and putting them in huge piles to be packaged and sold. We didn’t stay too long because the smell was pretty uncomfortable, but it was still pretty cool!
Smelling spices at a spice market:
After getting a tour of the city, we were starving. The rickshaw drivers had dropped us off at a very fancy-looking restaurant, but we tried to avoid the expensive restaurants aimed at Western tourists and found a very nice little restaurant overlooking the water.
After lunch, we took a ferry across the water to a small island called Vypin. There wasn’t too much happening on the island, but we managed to find a pretty nice beach, wandered around the beach for a bit and had dinner nearby.
Cherai Beach:
The beautiful palm trees and waters of Kerala:
The next day, we got a one day boat cruise package that took us on a boat ride through the backwaters of Kerala. The boat was non-motorized and basically moved by two men one in front and one in back pushing the boat with long sticks (like the gondolas in Venice). The backwaters were beautiful and we sailed through lots of little canals lined with palm trees, stopped to see how some of the tribal peoples who settled along these canals lived, and had a nice lunch. It was generally a very relaxing day and after a snack and a few games of cards back in the seaside restaurant in Kochi that we ate at the day before, we were tired and happily on a bus back to Bangalore.
The boat we rode along the canals of the backwaters of Kerala:
Thinking back on the trips we’ve been taking the past few weekends, I’ve been really amazed at how little we’ve had to spend. The bus tickets have been costing about 2000 rupees round trip ($40), we’ve been able to stay at reasonably comfortable, though still on the cheaper end, living accommodations in these cities for about 200 – 300 rupees (about $5) a night. Food hasn’t cost more than 200-300 a meal, though we often are able to eat for much cheaper, so in general we’ve been spending less than $80 each weekend – which is pretty sweet! Next on the list is Delhi for a Harvard-organized trip with Harvard’s South Asia Institute, the ones who funded our project for the entire summer. We’ll get to meet up with a bunch of the other Harvard students who are here for the summer from all over India as well as meet some alums who live in the country. Stay tuned!
