My original bus ticket to Mangalore was at a discounted rate for a seat in the drivers cabin. However when I turned up at the bus stand with my booking agent he was told that I couldn’t travel in the cabin as I was a foreigner…….I had just spent all morning negotiating with various touts and booking agents in town to get this ticket as all the trains and nearly all busses were full for the xmas period . In order to be in Fort Kochin by x-mas morning ( and not sat on a bus after a sleepless night ) this ticket was my last chance, so I wasn’t best pleased with the mix up….after 20minutes of phone calls and further negotiations I was told there was a spot on another bus leaving that afternoon but I would have to pay full price and get to a different part of the city in order to catch it. I reluctantly agreed, forked over the extra rupees and was then taken on the train by one of the tour agents to a local station 20minutes away. I was then told it was a ten minute walk to the bus stop…this involved walking across the railway tracks and then through a slum area ( pretty interesting). Got t o pick up point easily enough but then ended up waiting for 3 hours for the bus to arrive in the heat. Was getting more and more tired by the minute after little sleep the previous eve. I was convinced at one point it wasn’t coming and all was lost, just as I had began to psyche myself up to another night in the salvation army hostel the bus appeared…it wasn’t quite the luxury ac sleeper bus I had been promised but by this point I didn’t care and just wanted to crash…That I did, and woke up 3 hours or so later to find myself in Pune…“Pune again WTF??” “ Good lord please tell me I’m not gonna get stuck here again!” Luckily it was just a quick stop on the way south and I managed to sleep for most of the night in moderate comfort with the aid of diazepam (despite the dude next to be constantly encroaching on my space in true sub-continental fashion….)
The next morning I awoke to some spectacular rural scenery, Coconut Palms, rice paddies and lush waterways….. in fairness much nicer than Goa…after an hour or so I reached Mangalore and got a rickshaw to the government bus stand . The last afternoon bus to Kochi had already left…I had missed it by an hour thanks to the delay in Mumbai the day before…..ahhh fuck man ..I felt like ripping my hair out…
I was told by the very unhelpful information officer that I could catch a government run bus to Kochi if I went to a neighbouring town called Kasaragod. I got the local bus there for 1.5hours only to find that the only connecting bus to Kochi left at 6 in the evening…this meant that I had six hours to kill and would have to catch a another night bus that evening , meaning I wouldn’t be waking up in a bed on xmas morning as I had hoped…..not a happy camper at this point ….
I spent a couple of hours in the bus station catching up on some long overdue blogs while being studied by a gang of local on lookers.......at 4ish I went to the bus conductors office to enquire about the bus and was invited to wait in their office where I chatted with a couple of the inspectors…both friendly guys who’s job seemed to consist of sitting around reading the paper and every now and then wandering around the bus station to make themselves look a bit busy…when one asked me why I wasn’t going to Goa for xmas I told him I had already been and there were too many white people…they found this hilarious and afterwards made it their personal duty to get me on the bus to kochi ..they phoned ahead for updates on its arrival and then escorted me personally onto the bus…..in fairness the six hours passed really quickly the inspectors were pretty hilarious….
The local bus was a cheap ticket but was designed sometime in the 1970’s by my reckoning …It had little if any suspension and seemed to have hard metal surfaces everywhere waiting for you body to collide into….this was my 3rd night in a row spent on the road and having caught a night bus like this on my last trip to India I knew my body was in for a battering. I prepared for the worst….For the first couple of hours had a triple bench to myself…not too uncomfortable even though every slight pothole in the road would make your body leap from the seat and land back down again painfully….I was then joined on the bench by a rather large fellow…still enough room for both of us though…2 hours later disaster struck as another fat guy joined us meaning I was pressed tightly into one corner against a metal hand rest….looking round I couldn’t believe my bad luck…the only two over weight people on the bus, and there both sat on the same bench next to me!! ….needless to say no sleep was had that night, and by the time I reached Kochi at 5am on xmas day I felt like my kidneys had been used as punching bags all night…..
Was relieved to get off the bus though …I had to negotiate a few more city busses to get to the area of the town I wanted to stay in……The city hadn’t woken yet and the xmas decorations on local houses and churches gave me some comfort….It felt like Christmas alright …so glad I didn’t stay in Goa …..
At 7am I found a decent room in a home stay next to the town basilica a few streets back from the sea…..crashed out until midday then forced myself to get up. Had a Christmas shave and went out to town ……My body felt destroyed from the previous three night’s cramped conditions, but I also felt a decent amount of satisfaction that I had made it in time for Christmas despite all the set backs …Looking round the area of Fort Kochin was the perfect place to spend it…an old portugese/dutch trading colony the streets were very quiet with lots of bright Indian style xmas decorations and mostly families on holiday visiting rather that drunken extroverts……
I spent the afternoon by the sea shore watching a large group of Indian holiday makers playing chicken with the waves in the harbour…( see photo)
The harbour incidentally was not quite as picturesque as I though it might be the oil refineries on the opposite side of the water made me make a mental note to avoid any fish that might have come from the famous Chinese fishing nets set along the sea wall……
I had a nap in the after noon and then went out to eat a solitary Christmas curry…met a cool German guy called Lucas in the restaurant who was also gonna be dining alone. We ate together and then went for a few drinks and talked about party/festival organisation ( he was a DJ who organised events in Germany )…….I headed to bed around midnight totally exhausted but feeling like I had had a good Christmas day …(my first alone outside of my home countries and first in warm conditions).
The next morning I woke with a mild fever and stomach problems….think I must have ate something bad during the night bus marathon. This in combination with my still pain riddled body meant I wasn’t I much of a mood to do anything….I managed to eat a bit eventually and then spent an hour or so in an internet café before having to head back to the hotel and its lavatory facilities…….Spent the whole afternoon and evening suffering from the fever and trying to sleep it off…that evening felt well enough to go watch a really cool Sitar and Tabla concert at the local cultural centre and then eat a light dinner…
Crashed early again and felt marginally better the next morn…fever gone but stomach still not right…in fairness I had been pretty lucky on that front so far this trip to India so couldn’t really complain too much…after a few hours I caught another local “bumper bus” (thankfully only for 2 hours this time) south to the small town of Allapy, where I would seek a boat ride on the famous Keralan Backwaters….
I went through hell to get to Kochin but I think it was worth it, Although a tourist town it still maintained its colonial charm and the Christian decorations made it feel properly like xmas…..there wasn’t a great deal to do there but it would have been an awesome place to relax for a couple of days if I hadn’t got ill again halfway through….but as many a local has told me over the last six weeks “ these things happen this is India!”……
"Christmas shave"? Did you have your Christmas bath too? ;)
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