|
|
|
Part 3: Kochi
7.8: Kochi
Poovath Heritage hotel, Kochi. This
morning I find out that the shower is only cold, there is no hot
shower. A bit surprising given that the hotel level is otherwise good.
The A/C unit obviously has a broken thermostat, because the temperature
can't be adjusted (it's always set to the minimum temperature). In the
late evening theA/C even stops working.
Weather: overcast the whole day, only
in the late afternoon and evening the sky opens up. Lots of rain until
4pm.
In the morning I stay long in the room because outside it is raining.
At 11:20am Vodafone informs me by SMS that I cannot make any more
outgoing calls because I have failed to provide identification.
Actually yesterday I got a similar SMS at the same time warning me to
provide identification within 48 hours otherwise they woulc cut my
line. I didn't bother yesterday because I was going to leave India
anyway in 48 hours. But all of this is really strange because at the
airport when I bought the SIM card they took all my details, copy of
the passport, address in India, they even took a photo of me. And now,
just 25 hours after the first warning they cut the line. Vodafone India
must have serious customer relationship problems. Better not to use
them.
At 12pm I leave the room and discuss a taxi for today with the
reception. The taxi is going to charge 150 Rs per hour, both for
driving time and waiting time. I also ask about a flashy and modern
mall and they suggest the Oberon mall in Ernakulam. Then I have lunch
in the hotel.
At 1pm I leave by taxi to the Thripunithura Hill palace, supposedly the
largest archaeological palace in South India. This lies to the west of
Ernakulam, 20km from my hotel.
To get there we drive across Fort Kochi, pass a number of bridges and
cross Ernakulam. Everywhere there is chaotic traffic, chaos on the
streets, dirt, messed up buildings. It must be a torture for the local
Indians to live here, among all this dirt, pollution and heat.
What a mess of a country. It would be a herculean task to clean up
everything, bring the infrastructure to a decent level, remove all
those wire lines in the air (yesterday evening during the rain there
were sparks coming from a power line, probably the naked wire power
lines has been shorted by the water). This morning in the hotel the
power collapsed several times.
I'm glad I'm only spending four days in India and luckily I didn't
bring the family to India. Imagine trying to cross a street with two
small kids and all that crazy and chaotic traffic. Put in very simple
terms, at the moment India is not suitable for a relaxing holiday with
the family. There is too much poverty, mess on the streets etc.
Anyway, we reach the Hill palace at 2pm. I pay 20Rs entry ticket, 20Rs
camera fee and 20Rs for the car parking. Interestingly the video camera
fee is a staggering 1500 Rs. Why so much difference in prices, and why
such a huge price at all, given that you may not use the camera inside
the museum? Besides nowadays any digital camera is capable of recording
videos, even smartphones can do that.
So, while the taxi driver has his lunch, I walk up to the Hill palace.
This is surrounded by a large park containing a botanical garden. It's
raining right now, but with sunshine this place should be very nice.
The palace has been converted to a museum and at first sight it looks
rather unimpressive. If this is the "largest archaeological palace in
South India", then South India doesn't have much in term of
archaeological palaces.
Photography is not allowed inside the museum and you have to leave the
camera in the museum reception. They also want you to leave the mobile
phone in the reception, which is nonsense. In fact I don't leave it
there, but shortly after I'm blocked by a weird security person who
scans my pockets and asks me about the mobile phone. Since I won't part
from the smartphone (it's a very personal thing, and it feels like the
security guard is asking me to leave the wallet or passport in the
reception), I interrupt the museum visit. What are they afraid of? That
I might take poor quality pictures of the museum artifacts with the
smartphone?
It's 2:40pm when I'm back at the taxi. We drive to the Oberon mall in
Ernakulam, supposedly the best mall in the region. It's not that far
away, less than 7km, but the taxi needs a long time to drive these 7km.
Can't remember exactly, but it must have taken at least half an hour if
not longer.
The Oberon mall turns out to be far less impressive than I had
imagined. It's relatively small, the food court at the top is
also small and has limited choice of foods. The building is rather
unimpressive, and inside the mall is not designed to impress people.
The average mall in Dubai or Malaysia is orders of magnitude more
flashy than the Oberon mall.
In particular I had hoped to chill out for a while in an elegant cafe
enjoying some delicious food and drinks, and was hoping to buy some
high-quality western grade ice-cream. Nothing like that exists in this
mall. In the pathetic food court on the top I manage to find sort of a
bakery. The cake and pastry I eat are unimpressive. Cakes and pastries
they sell in any McDonalds in Germany are much, much better and are
fresh, which is not the case here (the pastry is old and dry). The
plastic tablet on which they serve the food in has an uneven rounded
bottom and when I put it on the table it swings and causes the glass of
pineapple juice to fall over.
India has some massive quality problems. Even the most basic things,
such as the food tray in this case, which should be completely even,
are not as they should be.
At 4:20pm I leave the Oberon mall and take a riskshaw to the Ernakulam
ferry (150 Rs). The idea would be to return to Fort Kochi by boat. We
reach the Ernakulam ferry terminal at 4:50pm, just in time to catch the
ferry to Fort Kochi which is leaving soon. What a coincidence and how
lucky I have been.
The ferry ticket costs a jaw-dropping 2.50 Rs. At first when I hear the
price ("two fifty") I think for a moment of 250 Rs, then when I ask
again I finally get it that the ferry costs only 2.50 Rs. How can it be
so cheap.
This is typical of India. One moment you are paying a price for
something, the next moment you are paying some completely different
price for something similar. The rickshaw ride cost 150 Rs, now the
ferry costs only 2.50 Rs. In theory, by being very careful about where
to buy things and food, it is possible to live very cheaply in India.
However it shouldn't be so, that there are such big differences in
prices of similar things and services.
The ferry ride takes about 20 minutes and at 5:15pm I'm on the island
of Fort Kochi. Here I slowly walk towards the Chinese fishing nets
area, because I'm hoping that perhaps the sky opens up and I manage to
catch some nice sunset shots of the Chinese fishing nets. In fact I'm
lucky, as the sky indeed opens up allowing me to get some decent shots.
Shortly after 6pm, when I'm there, the fishermen are discharging what
must be they daily catch. I see some very big fish and wonder where
they got them, given that their boats are relatively small, so they
can't have gone too far out.
When I'm done taking the pictures I buy a fish from the adjacent fish
market (a 400 grams red snapper costing 100 Rs) and a guy brings me to
his restaurant where he will cook it for me. The restaurant is about
300m further inland from the waterfront. Actually there are a number of
these restaurants here, all of which apparently specialise in grilling
the freshly caught fish for the tourists. My dinner is not bad,
actually the highlight of the day. Never mind that they are charging
high prices for preparing the fish (Rs 100), for the rice (Rs 50) and
the pineapple lassi (80 Rs).
After dinner I return to the hotel.
8.8: Kochi -> Kuala Lumpur (LCCT
terminal)
Tune hotel near the LCCT terminal of KL
airport. RM 222 for a tiny room, 2.5m x2.5m with A/C, a bed, attached
bathroom with shower and nothing else. Such a room normally should cost
way less than RM 100, if it wasn't for the location in walking distance
from the LCCT airport terminal. To make matters worse, check-out is at
11am, a real shame given that in any normal hotel the check-out time is
12pm noon and I arrive only after midnight local time. Somehow I regret
having booked this place and not another place near the airport (there
are hotels in towns close to the airport - should have stayed there). I
guess it's the last time I stay in this hotel. WLAN and breakfast not
included in the room price (would have had to pay for them separately).
Weather: overcast in Kochi with some
rain. Not hot. Every now and then the sun pierces through a bit.
I'm woken up at 9:30am by the alarm clock. I pack my things and check
out at 11am, leaving the bags at the hotel. Then I start with my
sightseeing of Kochi.
The first stop is the Dutch cemetery adjacent to the hotel. Some
tombstones scattered on a field of grass. The cemetery is closed, but
you can watch it through the gate.
Next to the Dutch cemetery there is a beach with orange sand. The beach
is almost empty, probably because of the weather. But even with good
weather I doubt anybody would like to use it, simply because the sea
water is very, very dirty. Perhaps the seawater is so dirty because
right here is the estuary of the backwaters, i.e. all
dirty water from the backwaters flows here into the sea.
I walk to the Indo-Portuguese museum, which lies next to the Bishop's
house. On the way I'm again approached by rickshaw drivers who offer me
a full tour of Kochi for 50 RS (one hour).
There is a certain atmosphere in this place. Old houses with crumbling
facades and roofs, overgrown with vegetation, big and large trees like
from a magical forest. The perfect setup for an old colonial town.
The Indo-Portuguese museum turns out to be nothing special. In fact in
less than 5 minutes I'm done visiting it (25 Rs ticket). It just
contains religious items taken from churches here in Goa. Pretty
uninteresting stuff, if you are European and are used to Christian
churches.
On the way to the restaurant (I've skipped breakfast today) I ask in a
couple of travel agencies what a taxi to the airport costs. I'm quoted
between 800 and 1000 Rs. Later I find out that 800 Rs is the price for
a car without A/C, probably a very old one because all new cars have
A/C.
At 12pm noon I have a lunch in the restaurant near the Santa Cruz
basilica where I had dinner the other day, then at 1pm I walk to the St
Francis church. This is relatively unimpressive, but at least it's
still the original building from the colonial times.
Back in the hotel at 1:20pm I ask for a taxi (Rs 960). The taxi arrives
after about 10 minutes. The trip to the airport should take 1h - 1:30h
as I'm being told (46km).
In fact the distance is not that big, but due to all the traffic jam we
only arrive shortly after 3pm. The airport is a clean modern building.
After checking in try to get out again to take some pictures of the
airport. Some discussion with the guards who tell me that checked in
passengers are not allowed to leave the airport. More discussion and I
finally manage to get out, escorted by some airport staff.
Lots of checks by the way. You must have a ticket to get into the
airport. i.e. you must carry a printout of your electronic ticket with
you, otherwise they won't let you in.
I change the remaining Indian rupies into Malaysian cash (getting a bad
exchange rate, never mind), then proceed through immigration.
After some checks I reach the passport control counter. The girl wants
to know why I am flying to Malaysia and not back to Germany. I would
like to tell her that this is none of her business, but do not do so.
Some discussion. Then suddenly the girls insists that I show her my
itinerary. Very funny, I don't have an itinerary. I explain that I'll
stay in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia etc. In fact my itinerary is not
fixed yet, but this girl apparently is expecting me to produce a
printout with all places I'm going to visit.
Actually I'm just leaving India so this immigration officer shouldn't
care where I'm going to. If she were an airline employee she might
worry that I might not be allowed to enter the country and am sent back
at the airline expense, but this is an immigration officer.
In any case, to finish the discussion I show the girl a printout of my
Emirates ticket from KL to Munich. Finally the girl is happy. Good bye
India, I will not visit again. There are so many other nice places,
where it is so easy to travel, where there are no multiple redundant
security checks at the airports, where the visa is either free or does
not cost 64 Euro, where there is not so much chaos and dirt on the
streets and so on.
After a couple more security checks (the entire airport security is
hopelessly overstaffed - lots of redundant security officers who just
check again documents which have already been checked a few metres
behind, just to get the feeling that they have something to do) I
finally reach the gates area. There is not much here, only a few shops
selling souvenirs and one lonely cafe selling snacks and drinks. No
restaurant, even if this is the international terminal.
I spend the time waiting for the flight having a tea and some snack and
going through my photos. Then I board the Airasia plane and am greeted
by two beautiful Airasia hostesses in sexy dress. Wow, what a
difference. The women I've seen these four days in India were mostly a
disaster. Miniskirts, legs, body curves? Forget it. Not available in
India. I haven't seen a single pretty Indian woman in these four days
in Kerala. Either they don't exist or they keep them locked up
somewhere.
The flight leaves on time. I'm served the chicken Biryani meal I
ordered and relax on the plane. The plane is actually half-empty. I'm
the only western tourist on board.
We land on time shortly before midnight at the LCCT terminal of KL
airport. Then everything goes very fast. There no more arrival card to
fill out. This time there is no queue at the immigration counter and
they process my passport in less than a minute. By 12:10am I have
retrieved the luggage and walk to the Tune hotel. By 12:30am I'm in the
hotel room.
Copyright
2012
Alfred
Molon
|
|
|
