... So that's an excellent opportunity to update our site! However, limited time again since I've got only half an hour left. Was chatting with mommy and that felt so nice!
We're sitting in an internetcafe at Ernakulam, that's the mainland part of Cochin in Kerala. It's amazing how far we've traveled already, we've been in five states since arrival: Maharashtra, a short stop in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and now Kerala. Soon we'll also visit Goa, so then we'll have visited all the southern states!
Cochin Chinese fishing nets
Kathakali performance in Cochin
Cochin is a very pleasant town, Fort Cochi, where we stayed, is a small island, surrounded by the ocean and the backwaters. It's very much influenced by all these European colonials who came here: The Portuguese, then Holland, and England too. Someone told us the French were here too. So the houses, people's names, the way of living is very Western - also because Kerala is very touristic. We even had a bathroom with a Western toilet and today at the restaurant there was even toilet paper! That dated back to Mumbai I think. We just buy our own toilet paper and hide it somewhere whenever we have to go to the toilet. Buying toilet paper isn't a big problem. They don't have it in every shop, but at the more touristic places, it's easy to find. Another remarkable thing is that suddenly here in Kerala, lots of women are wearing an umbrella: as well for the sun as for the rain. We didn't see that anywhere else in India, so maybe also colonial heritage?
After our bad experience with the bus travel, we decided to take a train to Cochin - as that was cheaper too. We had to change trains then, but that wouldn't be a problem according to the woman who helped us: we had more than an hour, we just needed to go to another train station and that would only take 15 minutes, so plenty of time left. As you might have guessed by now, we didn't get that connecting train. By far: our train - our compartment full with snoaring men °AAAAH° - was about 2,5 hours late... But fortunately, we could take another train without having to buy a new ticket. The bad thing was that we didn't have a reservation for that train, so we had to travel 2nd class - wooden benches so not quite comfortable. We finally got there, but we really regretted that we hadn't taken the bus, that would have been faster, more comfortable and probably also less trouble :) But well, it was an experience...
Time's up and I'm not nearly halfway of my story... But that'll be for another time.
How do you like my sari?
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