First stop in India: Kerala
- 23 déc. 2017
- 3 min de lecture
After two long flights from China, here it is, we have finally set foot in India! We have been mentally prepared by blogs, guidebooks and people about the cultural shocks to expect in India but Kerala seems to be the exception to the rule. Kerala is famous for being the most layed back region and rightly so. Here we also meet Aurore (Agathe’s sister) who is joining us for the Christmas holidays. As we arrive we first take a two hour bus journey to Allepey. The buses here don’t have A/C but also don’t have closed windows, so we spend the journey dangling our heads out of the windows admiring our first sights of India. The first thing that stands out are the beautiful colourful saharis that all the women are wearing, they all look so elegant! We arrive at our homestay which is run by (…) and her son. They make us feel straight at home! After gulping down our first indian milk tea we set off to a nearby beach. There we find a small table under coconut trees and get served our first fish thali. Which is curry fish served with loads of different bowls with chutneys, sauces and chapatis on the side - we are in heaven! The next day we visit Allepey’s famous backwaters, where we are canoed in many little water canals running through small villages. We relax and watch as daily life goes by, women washing clothes, men constructing houses and kids in their uniforms going to school. It is so relaxing! On our way back from the canoes we decide to check out the center of Allepey.
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It turns out to be carnival night with a massive night market, incredibly loud, with loads of colourful stands selling all the kitsh things one could hope to find in an indian market! We stop at a small restaurant and have once again an incredible meal of curries with chapatis. We were scared to really miss chinese food, but it seems tasting all the delicious indian food will be keeping us busy for a while! We then head to Kochi, the capital of Kerala and stay with Joicy. Once arrived we learn that we might have been a bit ambitious with train bookings and that we will have to delay our departure by a day as all trains to goa are full because of christmas holidays. We therefore get more time to discover Kochi which is also very relaxed city with many delicious places to eat and good shopping (which is good as Agathe and I still hadn’t gotten each other christmas gifts, a bit hard as were always together!!). We also really enjoyed staying with Joicy as she was calling us her children and cooking up some of the most incredible breakfasts we’ve ever had!
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We then get our train to goa, we are half excited half dreading our first train in India. The evening before I had asked Joicy if the class we were taking (3rd as everything else was booked) was safe and her answer was “no worries, I pray for you”, great ! We arrive in the train to find it chock a block full. Apparently many people travel without tickets and just pay off those who check. We are five sitting on the three seats we had originally booked and find little mice running between our bags on the flour. But other then that the journey turns out to be absolutely fine!
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