Landing in Kochi we finally felt some serious heat. Everyone had been telling us Kerela would be much cooler, so we quite looking forward to it before heading to the Sauna that is Chennai.
The humidity was through the roof, to borrow a phrase from the legendary Ravi Shastri. Another thing which caught our eye and tickled us was how practically everybody was walking around in a lungi.
We had booked our hotel the night before and opted for a cheaper option as the following two days were to be spent on a houseboat. We booked a pre-paid taxi from the airport and took a 45 min drive our hotel. When we arrived our cab driver tried pulling a fast one on us and telling us it would be Rs. 30 extra; who we told to take a hike.
At first the hotel exceeded our expectations. Looked very clean and the staff were pretty helpful. We settled in, freshened up and went down to the hotel restaurant to grab some food. They seemed to be having a candle-lit dinner night; it was so dark we were unable to even read our menu and a the place was filled with dudes, it didn't exactly provide the atmosphere we were looking for while eating.
We headed off to a nearby hotel which looked to have a much better restaurant only to find the service was abysmal. We ordered our food, when it arrived one dish was missing; which they then decided to tell us was unavailable. Things got worse from there. We ordered another dish with naan. The naan arrived within 5 minutes but the dish was not to be seen for another 30 mins.
After a 2 hour meal, we decided to go for a walk in search of a juice bar. Walking down the dark streets, we encountered a fright - Giant cockroaches walking around all over the place. I've seen cockroaches before, but these were 4-5 times the size of any I'd ever seen before. Having had our fresh pineapple juice, we hurried back to our hotel in fear of getting attacked from one of these cockroaches. Settling in our room, we put our feet up where we were given another fright, there were 3 of these cockroaches in our room. Being the men we are, we jumped onto the bed and called room service, who were kind enough to change our room.
The following day we went in search of a houseboat. We arrived at the boat jetty and started bargaining the price of our stay. The original quoted price was Rs. 7000 per night, we were quite pleased with ourselves to get the price down to below Rs. 5000 per night and yet felt we were probably still getting ripped off.
Our mood quickly changed as the boat set off and made its way into the backwaters.
The sight is something so beautiful, something difficult to put into words. So instead of writing a 1000 words on it, just have a look at this pic.
The whole journey provide us with exquisite sites and having heard Kerala is known as God's own country, its not difficult to see why.
One of the things we wanted to get done while in Kerala was an ayurvedic massage. But being on a houseboat for 2 nights and flying out to Chennai when we got back, we thought it wouldn't be possible, but to our surprise the boat stopped at a place along the way which offered them.
We opted for the full body massage, not fully knowing what would be in store for us.
As I went into the massage room, the masseuse asked me to remove my clothes. I stripped down to my underwear, when he tied a string around my waist and tucked in a slim cloth to the front and then proceeded to tell me to remove my boxers; which made me slightly uncomfortable, but had to go along with it *eek*
The massage was an amazing experience; the holiday til then had been quite tiring and Kerala was to be a break from it all. Muscles were relaxed, mind was fresh and we were ready to enjoy more of the back waters and the cool breeze as we went along it.
The boat ported near some village for the night and then it got boring, with no entertainment on board apart from our phones which wouldn't receive a signal from inside our room and all other parts of the boat swarming with mosquitoes we weren't left with much else to do but fall asleep. At least that's what we thought. We had managed to get an hours kip before the power from the boats generator failed us and the A/C went; The next thing we knew, we were up, covered in sweat. This happened about 6 times through the night and the relaxation we had hoped for in Kerala was not to be.
The following morning we told the captain, this is unacceptable and we want to go back. As we arrived back on port, our agent (who we booked the boat through) arrived and was telling us we won't be getting a full refund for the one night we wouldn't be staying, but through some stubborn arguing we managed to get our refund and a small discount for the unpleasant night we had spent there.
We checked into a hotel for our final night in Alleppey and to our surprise it had a rooftop pool. As it was mid-afternoon we decided to head to the beach and we could take a dip in a pool later.
The heat in Kerala wasn't something we had experienced so far in India, so our stay at the beach was drastically reduced. As we returned to the hotel, we decided to cool off in the pool and luckily there was nobody else around, so it turned into a 2 hour session of bombing in the pool
Having spent the morning and early afternoon arguing for a refund and checking into a hotel, we didn't manage to have a meal, so when we went to get some food that evening we ended up ordering for 4 people. But the food at the hotel was divine and we actually managed to finish it all.
Kerala had its ups and downs. Even though we had some disappointing moments, I'd still recommend it to anyone visiting India. Some of the sights are out of this world, beauty you only see on postcards.
On our final night we had asked the hotel concierge to find out what times the trains would be going back to Ernakulam from where we could grab a taxi to the airport. As we arrived for breakfast in the morning we found the trains would be leaving too late for us to make it to Ernakulam on time. So we had to rush to the bus stand with our luggage trailing behind us. After a strenuous search for a bus heading to Ernakulam; as every bus that came was packed out and with us carrying plenty of luggage it was impossible to get on. Luckily we found a coach with a manic driver who, I think had a death wish as he raced to the the location driving on both sides of the road even with oncoming traffic.
As we made it to Ernakulam, we found our bus would be going towards the airport, but it would be waiting for at least 30 mins at Ernakulam before leaving and us racing against the clock to make our flight. We decided we'd have to catch an autorickshaw to the airport.
Having paid an extra Rs. 300 to get the autorickshaw we were left quite disappointed as we reached the airport, the bus we were originally on drove past us
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