Hotel Presidency Kochi

... us that he spent time in England doing a post-doctorate in something mariner related and worked for P&amp;O. We laugh and mention his impeccable manners, I I think he liked that as we both got a Dal Rotti bookmark!<br><br>As we stumble back we are blown away by the jungle like humidity and the most amazing banyan trees that loom overs us. We're both quite surprised when the said tree bursts into life and a FECKING GREAT BIG BAT flies above our heads. It ...

... crabs to hammerhead sharks (pretty unethical). From here we toured shaded parks, historic buildings now luxury hotels still retaining their architectural splendour, a whitewashed Basilica behind yet more Christian schools, the oldest church (of St. Francis) in India, and a mintue but well kept beach. It's streets draw you in, as you're led from antique shop to yet another attractive eatery. Our second day we took a rickshaw past a Jain ...

... full we met Anas who was going to give us a tour of the Fort area. In the morning we visited the Santa Cruz Basilica, St Francis Church, Spice Warehouse and the Ginger Factory. The spice warehouse was our pick with the fragrant aromas of all the spices and the medicinal herbs for Ayerverdic treatments. A little hungry after our busy morning, Anas took us to a local Thali restaurant where we had a really nice lunch for 130R for the three of us. Thali is a vegetarian ...

... the beach, pointing and talking loudly, again, unbelievably close to them. It really annoyed me. I am off to Varkala tommorrow for more undeveloped beaches, and some tasty seafood. The people I'm staying with are both cross-eyed, what are the chances of that? They are married, and in their 70's I would say, but were they both like that from birth and met by chance? Are they distantly related? Did they both witness something a long time ago that left them ...

... hours, to Cohin (Kochi). Here we found one of the nicest, most relaxed places that I have visted here in India. We stopped here for three days, learning how to cook some traditional south india food, taking a trip into the tranquil backwaters of teh Kerala region, and all round relaxing in our 'Homestay' style accomodation. One of the best stories form here though, was spending a day or so with a couple of Rickshaw drivers. To shorten the story, drivers get half a litre of ...

Naresh: I woke up early. Amy did not. HBO was there to entertain me with that last third of "Die Hard" (makes John McCain look good; Democrats deserve equal time), and then half of "The Man." I accidentally played it loud enough to wake up Amy so we could get to breakfast before the 10AM ending time. From the roof of our lodge we got our first daylight view of Kochi. Very green and moist, like Hawaii or Ghana. Just two short blocks ...

... to the enquiry clerk, it's fully booked forever!!!! yeah right!!! so then went to a dodgy travel place to enquire about flights, but way too expensive for our budget, so we checked the net ourselves for flights, but again, too expensive, so we started to look up other places, and came across a place called Mysore, a bustling city south of Bangalore, with an amazing palace and lots of temples and a spice and food market and it well worth sounds like its worth a visit, so we asked ...

... using these massive nets and you can watch them at work at high and low tide each day. Once they land their catch you can go to the local fish shops situated handily on the shoreline and pick your fish and then have it cooked any which way you desire. Certainly one of the best things for us during our stay in Kerala has been the abundance of fresh fish for consumption. We have eaten it ...

... This is coffee with a utilitarian twist! Trivandrum's branch was in a bizarre, cylindrical building - hard to describe, but imagine being inside a helter skelter and you're close. Each booth was stepped up slightly from the previous one, meaning you have to walk up on a slope, so finding a free table at the top made me quite queasy. The decor leaves a lot to be desired but if you stripped the flaky niccotine stained paint away it'd lose its shabby charm! Most ridiculously of all, the ...

... hatten. Unter ihnen, manchen mag er aus der Schule noch ein Begriff sein, auch Vasco da Gama, der hier auch seinen Lebensabend verbrachte. Aber auch Chinesen hatte es in fruehen Tagen hierher verschlagen und so konnte man am Strande Kochins seltsame Konstruktionen bewundern, Chinesische Fischernetze, die mit einer komplizierten Anordnung von Gewichten und Gegengewichten betrieben wurden und dabei erstaunlich ineffektiv waren. Hier lernte man auch schnell mal ein paar andere Reisende ...