Blogs from Kochi, Kerala, India, Asia - page 5

From Kuala Lumpur I flew Air Asia to Kochi, located the southern state of Kerala in India. “Incredible India”, as its tourism slogan says, has been very high on the list of countries I wanted to visit and I finally made it! My first impressions were: “Crazy traffic, a different world, very interesting and cheap”!!! India is known to the outside world as a dirty country with low hygiene standards, which in one way is true but you just have to be a bit careful where you eat. There are plenty of small, simple restaurants and if a restaurant is usually busy, that means it’s good and safe to eat at. Meals are very cheap and you could budget around US$ 7 per day for food, but you could get away with even less than that. ... read more

HE SAID... We touched down in Kochi at 10pm and were immediately greeted by the warm embrace of a balmy Indian evening. We breezed through customs and caught a taxi to Saj Homestay in Fort Kochi. It was a one hour drive, and we finally arrived at 11.45pm. The place was fantastic! We dropped our packs, showered and then crawled into bed at 12.30pm (or 6am Hobart time). We’d been travelling for 26 hours. The call to prayer woke me at 5.30am. The bustle outside our first floor window was slowly building and a bird with a monotonous call had started his day. I stayed in bed until 6am and then slowly began to organise my pack where I’d dropped it the night before. I felt incredibly rested. We headed down to breakfast at 8.30am. A ... read more

After a verycivilised flight to Cochin (easyjet and Ryanair could take note!) we went straight to the very old shul. It's very beautiful and is in the middle of Jew Town which used to be full of Jews but now there are only 7 jews left. There's a cemetery too and a few old mezuzahs left on houses. Then a swim in our pool (lovely!) and a walk along the river fast-flowing and full of water lilies exiting into the Arabian Sea. Lots of stalls selling their wares and most unusually a row of Chinese fishing nets. We watched the catch being hauled in. Unchanged for hundreds of years. Looking forward to 3 days in the backwaters......... read more

In the forests ranges of Malayattoor in Kerala found Bharanikuzhi waterfalls; it’s seasonal in nature. The awesome beauty wins hearts of travelers at very first glance. If you love nature and traveling come to watch the rendezvous of Bharanikuzhi waterfalls. I visited this place 3 or 4 times in past and all time I promise myself to revisit again. Here are my experiences sure nature lovers will enjoy reading. The beauty of Kerala lies in the green areas spread across length and breadth of the state. Incidentally, this place is not highlighted in the state’s tourist map yet. If those places started founding place in a tourist’s map, perhaps the real luster will be lost because of excessive human encroachment. The url=http://www.indiatravelblog.com/resources/3267-Bharanikuzhi-seasonal-waterfalls-at-Malayattoor.aspxBharanikuzhi waterfalls is one such a seasonal beauty that is f... read more

MUMBAI – Sunday 2nd Feb / Monday 3rdFeb 2014 Marvellous, manic, Mumbai!! Lots of administration before we could even get off the ship! (Docked at No 18 Indira Dock) We got up at 5.30am (walked a mile around the deck!!) before queuing with all the other mad people at 6.00am, waiting for the immigration officers to come on board and have a face to face interview – ie stamp our yellow card!!! Breakfast and then queued again for ‘ship clearance’ and eventually disembarked at 8.15am where our Private Tour of Mumbai (Services International, Delhi) driver should have been waiting!! To be fair, they were only 5mins late and we were duly driven and escorted to The Gateway of India of India to buy our tickets for the first boat of the day to Elephanta Island at ... read more