CRIScom travel experience flow – The personal website of Christoph Potzinger

Yesterday at 11.45 a.m. we arrived at our apartment after a 24 hour trip that brought us from Bangalore via Mumbai, Dubai, Vienna to Graz. It was an exhausting journey back home, which pushed me to my very limits in Mumbai where we had to change over from the domestic airport, where we arrived from Bangalore, to the international airport. Although we had more than 3 hrs in order to change planes we made it by 15 minutes to catch our plane to Vienna.

My nerves where cracking for Mumbai airport was (more…)

This is our last morning here in Bangalore. We are very positive that we can go home tonight since yesterday’s Austrian Airlines flight from Mumbai to Vienna was carried out as scheduled.
Honestly, I was very shocked by what has been going on in Mumbai. For me, it was utterly disturbing, all the more since we have visited all those places under attack – we had two lovely evenings in Leopold’s restaurant and used CST station to depart from Mumbai to Goa by train.
Although that is easy to say now, Sylvia and I had kind of a hunch about this trip. Although we were far from canceling our trip, we seriously considered going to Bali instead. Something didn’t feel inviting about this trip. However, in retrospect it is interesting to note what kind of messages our inner voices are communicating.

In essence, it was very difficult (more…)

We heard of the terrorist attacks in Mumbay yesterday while watching the cricket one day international between India and England. At first, we thought that it was just a minor incident but we couldn’t be further away from the truth.
We are lucky to be here in Bengalore far away from Mumbay but we still have to go into Mumbay on Saturday morning to fly out of India. We wouldn’t want to go there today so we appreciate the extra day here in Bengalore and hope (more…)

The boy woke me at 5.10 a.m. as we had arranged. It was still dark outside and it was drizzling. I scrambled out of the mosquito net that covered our beds and into the open air bathroom. My stomach was aching. I had, once again, eaten too much for dinner. I had still not learnt to handle the Indian food. It is much too good, literally forcing me to over eat. Terrible. But I had not experienced any problems with spices or had become sick of the food or water. Good.
At 5.45 a.m. I arrived at the reception which was a short walk away from our bamboo accommodation. These huts were built a little apart from one another in order to create an atmosphere of remoteness, of really being out there –alone– in the jungle. As a matter of fact, you can watch wild deer grazing just a few meters away from the huts at dusk and dawn.
Daniel, the gamekeeper and our guide for the morning trekking tour, was late. Trying to be nice to my stomach, I helped myself to a cup of black tea with milk. If you add sugar to this mixture you get the number one Indian drink: Chai. It is just delicious.
The noise of jeeps announced the arrival of Daniel, (more…)

Fort Kochin is special for the Indian’s try to make it that way – for tourists. The part where we stayed is the most ancient part of the peninsula, that part where the Europeans landed some 500 years ago. After a five minutes walk, however, you are quickly reminded of where you really are: India is beckoning with its littering, dilapitaded buildings, bad smell, traffic chaos.
On Saturday, we started our exploration of Fort Kochin by visiting the ancient and famous Chinese fisher nets. The fishermen were so friendly, calling us over, to check out the nets and take photos, only to demand an indecent amount of money from me – Sylvia having a hunch refused to come -afterwards. After telling them, that I was not willing to pay the demanded price the smiles suddenly vanished. (more…)