3 Weeks Across Incredible India

Travel time: January 2009 | by Michael Honsel

Kerala Coastline

In the evening I had a very warm welcome at the house of Saijo's parents.

House of Saijo's parents where I stayed a couple of nights

Thanks a lot to Saijo's mother for preparing so much nice food.
After a good meal and the sleepless night before I had a very good sleep even 4.5 hours earlier.

Day 3 - 11. January 2009

In the morning we went to Ernakulam train station to get on a train to Alleppey which is about 1 hour away.

Lijo and Saijo at Ernakulam Train Station in Cochin

In Alleppey we chartered a small boat for a backwater tour.
For a couple of hours we did a tour through very nice landscape. I have never seen so many palms. Just see the pictures...

our small chartered boat

A house boat

For a small boat like we had (not a large house boat) you can expect to pay around 300Rs an hour.
Later we spent some time at Alleppey Beach. Many children were very interested in me as white person and used their first English skills to talk to me.

Alleppey Beach

Sunset in Alleppey

After sunset we had some nice fruits at a food stall close to the beach. At 8pm we went home to Cochin on train. At this time I believed the train was very crowded but after some other train trips I will say it was an empty indian train

Day 4 - 12. January 2009

Today I explored the city of Cochin with Saijo.

Temple in Cochin

Time to drink coconut water

Renewable Energy Park in Cochin

"Clean it to get more energy", this was perhaps not me

Spices store

Vegetable market

In the afternoon we went on a ferry to Fort Cochin. Fort Cochin is more touristical and very nice. In Fort Cochin we made an autorikscha tour and ended up on the beach.

Street in Fort Cochin

Fishing net in Fort Cochin

In the evening we went back by ferry and autorikscha to Saijo.

Day 5 - 13. January 2009

The night I got some stomach problems. It was hard to explain Saijo's mother that she made no bad food. I just needed to get "indianized". It is good that Saijo is biologist and he could explain her something of other bacteria in yoghurt etc. I can recommend to other travellers that you should not eat too much in the first days in India when you are not used to eat indian food. Saijo recommends not to eat more than one coconut per day now.

So the day I spent on toilet and sleeping. But in the late afternoon we decided to do a short tour to a temple which made an elephant procession.