Zoe's Travel Blog: Travelling south into Kerala

It was difficult to leave the bliss of Palolem beach behind, but it was time to continue our journey southwards. With a flight booked from the southern city of Trivandrum on 29^th back up to Delhi, there was still a depressing amount of mileage to cover if we are to get there and see all the things we want to see en route. Buses are never at convenient times and the bus from Palolem to Mangalore was no exception. As it didn’t leave until 3.30pm, we had to check out of our beach hut at 11am and then loiter around town trying to stay cool in the blazing heat. Typically, the bus did not turn up until after 4pm. No sleeper beds this time, just regular reclining seats which it turns out are preferable to being thrown about on the bunks, albeit only just. The pot holes and winding coastal road did not make for a comfortable journey, particularly as our driver seemed to have a death wish and kept hitting the potholes at high speed. Arriving in Mangalore at 1am is also not ideal, but luckily we managed to find a tolerable hotel for the night and better still, the price you paid was for 24 hours so no having to get up early for check out. Seemingly, most hotels in southern India operate on a 24 hour room rate basis and we hadn’t booked into a dodgy hotel where you can get rooms by the hour!

Mangalore is not known for its tourist attractions and we only stopped there in order to break up our journey. It was in fact quite an odd place and finding somewhere that served breakfast turned out to be quite a challenge. Having not eaten dinner the night before (food other than bananas, crisps and biscuits is best avoided at venues where the bus stops – buses don’t have toilets so getting food poisoning on a long journey is not an appealing option), we were both starving. We failed miserably in our quest to find a restaurant that served breakfast, or indeed opened before 11am. After an hour of searching, we eventually found a café that served a mighty fine grilled cheese sandwich, although at that point, I probably could have eaten anything. The food in Southern India is completely different from that in the north so it is taking us a while to figure out what to order. Frankly most of the menu may as well have been in a different language so we opted for the cheese sandwich as a safe bet!

The most exciting thing that Mangalore had to offer was a large supermarket – the first proper supermarket we have come across in India. After stocking up on snacks and drinks, we literally spent the rest of the day relaxing in our hotel preparing ourselves for the train journey that night. It has been a while since we’ve been on a train (unfortunately they tend to get booked up far in advance) and it felt like complete luxury after all the horrible bus journeys. Even more so because the train was quiet and we had a 4 sleeping berth section to ourselves. Unfortunately, our stop was scheduled for 3.35am and as it wasn’t the last stop, this meant having to be awake so that we didn’t miss it. Stations are never announced on Indian trains – apparently you should just know (tricky if you’ve never been there before) or you can try asking people who will normally provide you with an unhelpful array of differing information.

Next challenge, finding a hotel that wasn’t full. For some reason, ever since we have left northern India, finding places to stay has become more difficult. Nowhere was ever full, now everywhere is full and / or expensive. Let’s be honest, the last thing you want to do at 4am is have to trail around looking for somewhere although thankfully we did at least have a helpful rickshaw driver (helpful people in India are not commonplace). Also at that time of the night, you have to wake up the guy sleeping in reception which isn’t always easy. Eventually we found somewhere which interestingly had no shower, just a tap and a bucket in the bathroom…

By the way, we are now officially in the state of Kerala and staying in the town of Ernakulam (better known as Kochin, but actually Kochin is an island off the mainland). Kochin is an interesting mix of Portuguese, Dutch and British influences as all these countries have at some time controlled this island. On our first day in Ernakulam, we took the ferry across and spent the day sightseeing. It is a lot more peaceful there, if you can ignore the irritating the rickshaw drivers driving along beside you who seemingly can’t understand that you are happy walking and don’t require their services. Sometimes these things come back to bite you though and having been quite rude to many rickshaw drivers that day on Kochin, when we got back to Ernakulam, we couldn’t get a rickshaw driver to take us anywhere! It would appear that most Ernakulam drivers speak zero English, don’t know where anything is and can’t read maps – stupid people!! Interestingly though, Keralan people are on the whole better educated with an expanding middle class and this was evident from the modern shopping and food malls that could be found in the town. We were quite excited to discover fast food chains such as KFC in the mall!

Frankly a little tired of organising everything ourselves, we decided to book a couple of tours. The first a day cruise around the backwaters of Kerala for which it is famed. The second a two day trip up to the hill station and tree plantations of Munnar. As we would be basing ourselves in Ernakulam for a couple more nights at least, the lack of shower in the hotel was an issue, not to mention the intermittent electricity, and thus we embarked upon the mission of finding a new hotel. Ironically, we ended up going back to the guest house that we had originally intended to stay at but had been unable to get to in the early hours of the morning. The reason we couldn’t get to it was because the dog outside the front door was growling and snarling at us and we figured that a dog bite at 4am was really the last thing we needed. As it turned out, the dog was completely placid whenever we saw it during the day but Indian dogs do seem to go rather feral at night. Frankly the reason that they are placid in the day is probably due to the intense heat and their inability to move. Ernakulam is SO hot and humid. You sweat constantly and even at night the temperature does not get any cooler so sleeping is difficult. The only option is to have the ceiling fan on full which only serves to move hot air around and make a noise which keeps you awake anyway. The heat may also account for why so many men wear lungis here. I can best describe a lungi as a sarong worn as a giant nappy.

The backwaters of Kerala are essentially a myriad of channels and canals lined with palm trees and tropical rainforests. The popular way to explore these is via houseboat or canoe, both of which we did on our day long excursion. Unfortunately, our trip out to Munnar was cancelled due to strikes in that area, so we decided to escape the heat and humidity of Ernakulam and get to the beach. A 10 minute rickshaw ride, a 2 hour bus ride, a 3 hour wait, a 2 hour train journey, a 10 minute taxi ride and we are finally in Varkala right towards the very southwest tip of India. And here we shall remain for the next six days until it is time to make the final hop to Trivandrum and finish our journey. Time to relax……..