CRIScom travel experience flow – The personal website of Christoph Potzinger

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…)

I am still not sure what was driving me, when I booked that hotel room in Kollam. For my sanity, I hope it was lack of choice. The walls and windows of our room seemed to have melted in the humid heat of the afternoon and not even a soft rain could help it. The noise of the busy thoroughfare came in stereo. And only started to subside at 1 am in the morning only to rise again by 4.30.
Under such circumstances we caught quite a decent amount of sleep. Enough to drag ourselves to the train station and board our belated train to Ernakulam, which we reached in the midday heat. A motor rickshaw brought us to the boat jetty from where we wanted to take a ferry to Kochin. As we were cuing up at the ticket counter, suddenly the shutters fell and the counter was shut down – lunch break – despite a fast growing line of people wanting tickets.
We had to wait for 15 minutes until (more…)

Fortunately, nobody told us before we left from Kollam for Munroe Island what a 50 minutes trip of 27 kilometers in a motor rickshaw meant. Otherwise, we would have canceled the trip. But after we had started our trip through those crazy Kerala streets there was no turning back.
When we arrived at Munroe Island in order to go on board our canoe, I was again totally exhausted from the noise, dirt and confusion of our ride. I doubt whether I will ever get used to traveling on Indian streets. For me they are the ultimate definition of stress.
Munroe Island presented itself as a stark (more…)

Kingfisher Airways brought us safely from Goa to Trivandrum, capital of Kerala, with a stop over in Bengaluru. We arrived in Trivandrum late at night and caught a taxi to a mediocre hotel close to the train station. The night was very unpleasant due to the most uncomfortable beds we have ever slept in. Before a taxi was supposed to give us a lift to Verkala, 60 ks north of Trivandrum, we went out to explore the neighborhood. We walked towards the train and bus terminal in order to have breakfast in a unique Indian Diner which is located in a tower. This was quite an experience although the food was not particularly noteworthy. For the breakfast we paid about 150 Rupees, which is less than 3 Euros.
Outside the streets were the usual mess and amalgam of (more…)