travelling alone in Kerala (South India)
My advice for everyone who thinks about travelling from
Delhi to the South of India - never take a train, fly instead. It's cheaper, because
now offices overcharge foreigners around 2000 rupees (26 euros) and incredibly
slow (my journey took 51 hours!). Unless you want to experience a proper Indian
train – go for it, but not such a big distance.
The difference between North and South is massive: here you
have some pavements to walk, there’s less rubbish in the streets, everyone’s
more chilled and really calm. AND IT’S HOT!! My plan was to go by the west
coast towards the end of India, stopping in the small cities. I reached the
seaside city which definitely isn’t the beach destination named Kochi – famous for
its Portuguese, Dutch, English and Indian heritage, has a Jewish town with a
synagogue and loads of Chinese fishing nets. How incredibly calm it was – to
walk by the seaside, watch people working in the fishing nets and just relax
nearby the sea.
The next town was Alleppey, popular by its houseboats.
Backpackers come here to take a canoe trip around the villages through canals
or take a boat to another city, Kollam, which was my plan in the first place.
Unfortunately, during winter those boats go every second day and I was on the
wrong day – I already paid for the hotel in Kollam. So the first mistake: don’t
plan a week ahead unless it’s extremely touristic place or Christmas, cause
plans go wrong and you don’t get the full experience of the place you’re
visiting. But everything worked out just fine for me – I took a jetty trip for
a few hours, reached Kollam, had some drunk Indian guys coming to my room and
asking if I want to have fun with them (and then apologizing after and almost
kissing my feet, cause they were so scared I complained to reception), walked
around the slums and saw loads of friendly smiles of children and women towards
my side.
After these experiences, I went to the touristic seaside
village named Varkala (it’s the best place I’ve been so far in India). By
touristic I mean girls wear bikinis and sunbath on the beach and no one cares (India
is a conservative country, you have to fully cover yourself and local girls go
swimming to the sea with their normal clothes). The restaurants on the cliff
had typical holiday vibe, didn’t even feel like I’m in India! Spent all my days
by the beach, got sunburnt, met amazing people (one girl from Delhi even
invited me to her wedding – whenever that happens since she doesn’t have a
boyfriend yet).
I ended my beach days while heading towards the end of
India, a small town Kanyakumari which was full of pilgrims. The feeling was
incredible: to stare at three seas crashing together and know there’s Indian Ocean
ahead. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen, even though
after I got someone following me. A French couple saved me though, and we
wondered around decorated town for Christmas (it’s hard to feel the mood when
it’s +30 outside).
So far so good, I don’t have any idea where I will go
tomorrow and this week in general! And the feeling is exciting.
Some more facts about India:
- Everyone will stare at you, point at you, wave, smile, say hi and ask for selfies.
- India is all about the money – they expect you to give them some everywhere you go, even for extremely disgusting toilets. So it’s fair enough that foreigners get the idea and start asking for money to take a selfie with them (I still didn’t do it, but will try one day:D).
- Farting, burping, peeing, spitting and nose picking in public is normal.
