Here begins the following 1.5 months where I wouldn’t meet a foreigner nor have any form of decent conversation.
In Kochi, I was mainly relaxing. The place was pretty interesting, being a big city, an island with an airport and another island called ‘Fort Kochi’, where I spent my time.
Didn’t quite know what to do from here, as this is where all the airline issues popped up – the outcome of this obviously would impact my further travel plans.
I headed up to Munnar, a beautiful hill station drenched in fields of tea bushes.
It was quite a unique sight, to see hilltops with these flat, dark green fields.
It is here in Munnar that I had my first big stroke of homesickness.
The colder climat, grey clouds and rainy weather at that day, reminded me a lot of home sweet old Belgium.
That, combined with being tired and I don’t know what else, made me very mellow and longing for home, already I’d experienced more than enough to make this travel worthwhile.
I took a bus up the hill instead of the ‘tour rikshaw’, for about 90 rupees instead of 1000, and enjoyed a magnificent view.
This must be one of the unique features of India, the incredible differences in landscape.
This country simply has it all, from huge rivers with coconut trees bending down on them, a dawning sun reflecting gloriously on the waters, to grand fields filled with trees, from beautiful flowers aside the road to the Himalayas.
Truly amazing to experience. Even just taking a 10 hour train ride is an experience of which most people don’t realize it should be on their ‘must do before I die’ checklist.
Just 5-6 hours on a bus, and from a huge city with a beach side, I was up in a totally different climate, up in the mountains. Crazy huh?
Back to Kochi, had time to kill so stepped in a tuktuk that would drive me all around the place if I go and visit some shops, where he gains tokens and in return petrol for his tuktuk.
A normally terribly deal and extremely annoying hassle, but I had time, the sun was shining, and wanted to see a few more sides of this place.
To Goa!
Although that excitement might not be justified…