Today, we awoke with very few plans. We knew we needed to head to the airport around lunchtime. We agreed with Mr Narender to pick us up at 10:00, and thought we would go for a brunch, but by 9:00 we were bored, and went in search of decent food, since we refused to eat at the pathetic excuse for a rooftop restaurant our pathetic excuse for a hotel offered... We found a nearby heritage hotel and convince them to let us order off the menu. We enjoyed delicious pancakes with Maple syrup. We then checked out and paid for our laundry... They tried to charge us Rs500, but when we enquired further, we found that it should have been Rs330 - real scaly!!
We were feeling pretty nervous about the next batch of hotels, since we didn't even have the vouchers for them yet, so I got some of the names from the tour company and checked them up at an internet cafe. The next three looked fine, but Goa is still a concern as they seem unable to give me a name for that hotel :(
We got to the Udaipur airport, very small but modern and nice. It seems that the procedure in India is a little different, and security is very stringent. They check your passport and reference before you can even walk through the door, and screen your bags before you can even check in... Then at check in, you have to attach a tag to your hand luggage so that this can be stamped after further checks later... When going through to the gate, you have to hand over your boarding pass to security, who frisk you thoroughly in a spread legs position, and then if you are lucky, stamp your boarding pass and luggage tag.
The Indian airways flight was uneventful, and we had two round of meals, seems the only option here is veg or veg... We finally arrived in Cochin, Kerala at around 20:00. We were pleased to find our driver, Jeenu, waiting for us. He drove us through the streets of Cochin and we found ourselves liking it, the parts we saw were extremely modern and clean, the roads wide, and the drivers courteous, with much less hooting and lane hogging than other parts we had visited. Jeenu seemed very careful, it was the first time I had seen an Indian driver pull over to take phone calls!
We arrived at the hotel, "Dreams", and I was completely shocked at how totally 'chalk and cheese' and rollercoaster this experience could be... The place was huge and immaculate, we had definitely gone from 0 star construction site to 5star. The lobby was spacious and we were offered a refreshing cocktail while we completed the formalities of checking in. Christmas music was playing cheerfully in the background. The room was incredible, large and extremely modern, the lighting system was remote driven and quite impressive with a funky blue light effect, the flat screen tv huge and bearing English channels, the bathroom pristine, with not one but TWO rolls of toilet paper, without us even asking (!) the shower hot, offering a choice of 2 shower heads.... I could go on and on but here is a photo. A pity we have to leave tomorrow!
Ps, we are heading to the hill station (Munnar) tomorrow for two days, followed by the houseboat, so I'm not sure what the wifi setup will be. May be a few days til we can post again. But we are thinking of everyone at home!
- Nix
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Cochin, India
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