Off to Kozhikode

13.2.19

Our driver was outside 15 minutes early. We’ve noticed that Indian time is total opposite to Turkish time.

Went to pay our room bill, our lovely JJ cottage man wasn’t there today, we said goodbye last night.

It was a different man. He gave me a card and asked me to recommend them. I said we only had 2 issues, the wifi is terrible, at this point he totally talked over me and said it’s fine. I said it isn’t and that I was unable to upload my photos for my blog,

We even had to go into town to pay our Turkish bills. John said there aren’t enough plug sockets, just 2, and they are unreliable. He wasn’t interested and no point arguing with him. We are disappointed after all the rave reviews and Lonely Planet recommendation. His attitude was awful!

It was sad saying goodbye to the gorgeous, very vocal kitten, they do love her there and she is well fed.

After an issue with rear seat belts which the driver maintained we didn’t need and 2 stops to get them usable we set off at 8am on our drive to Ernakulam Junction Station.

Our train isn’t until 1pm but we could need a couple of hours to work out where we should get on it.

We have no idea what to expect from Kozhikode.

The itinerary planning all got a bit confused. Because getting to and from Munnar involves such long journeys we were going to leave it out.

There wasn’t anywhere else in South Kerala that we fancied so we were going to go from Periyar to Khozikode and spend more days up there and visit Wayanad National Parks, waterfalls and beaches etc from there.

We then decided to include Delhi in our trip and managed to book a flight out of Kozhikode and back into Cochin for our flight home.

Later I realised I had made a big mistake as Wayanad is a long way from Kozhikode and to stay in Wayanad made a very complicated long journey from Periyar.

The guide books all gave Munnar as one of the top places in Kerala to see and I just kept coming back to needing to see Munnar. John is so easy going and just goes where he is told.

So, we went to Munnar and now have to stay in Kozhikode as we have Delhi flights booked from there. I’m sure it will be fine and seems more than enough to see there for a full day.

We survived the very bendy journey to the station and arrived with just over an hour to spare. After a much needed double espresso John sorted it like a pro from the handwritten board on the station wall, we know which carriage area to stand by and are on platform 3 with 30 minutes to spare.

So much easier now we understand the seating procedure and with prebooked 2nd class tickets, not the horrible general ones they gave us in Kollam. That was a crazy experience!

The train was 20 minutes late arriving, Indian time doesn’t seem to relate to trains.

We found our seats, an Indian mum was asleep opposite on her bunk, with her husband asleep on the top. They had a small child each.

We were obviously very quiet and considerate and both watched our tablets, with headphones . I’m thoroughly enjoying catching up with Back In Time For School and had time for 3 episodes.

When the family woke they had twin daughters. They had almost completely taken over the carriage, we had to scrunch in and not much room for our feet with their bags and shoes everywhere.

So much stuff, including a huge water barrel, a large blue picnic basket, 2 large suitcases, smaller bags, a rucksack of toys and dvds for the girls, a laptop and of course cuddly toys.

They proceeded to put cartoon dvds on very loudly on the laptop. Great. Thanks.

By the time we arrived at 5pm it was an hour late and we were more than ready to get off.

It was chaos getting a tuk tuk, a weird system where you have to go right down the end of the car park and take a tuk tuk in turns. Except you don’t, everyone took full advantage of us struggling with luggage and barged past us, same struggling to get on and off the train, even without luggage its the same at counter queues, the same in shops, same in toilet queues. We’ve also had many times when staff have ignored us and served locals first.

The lack of manners and consideration is starting to wear me down, and don’t get me started on the snorting loudly and spitting. It’s really disgusting. Even right near when you’re eating. They don’t spit inside restaurants, just the snot sound. Yuk.

We finally got a tuk tuk and arrived at Nexstay Towers around 5.30pm. This is the most expensive per night of all the places we’ve booked. Not keen on bigger hotels but it was the best for central location and proximity to the airport.

No ‘Hi, welcome’, just a form pushed at us and a demand for payment up front, the first time this has happened. Losing the will to live, very tired, need a wee, and confusion over booking. coms pre payment that wasn’t taken, fed up with attitude and very pissed off now.

John went in search of cashpoints and paid the room bill.

After a wee and a coffee I felt better and the room is nice, shame it’s right on the main road with mad traffic and incessant beeping. I wonder how many replacement horns each car has in its lifetime.

We wandered along the road and back again to a very basic looking little place with lots of marinated meat and the chef in the window, there were lots of people eating.

Guess what John had… and I had butter chicken. Both superb and rounded off with fabulous pineapple juice virtually next door.

We have better than usual WiFi so enjoyed an evening of Spotify and rummicub.

Then the fun started. The (one) bathroom towel looked like it had been used to clean the floor. As John pulled back the duvet there was a large stain on the sheet, none of the bedding smelled fresh and after removing the duvet cover we discovered how disgusting the duvet was.

John took everything down to reception and they rang housekeeping, it was 10.30pm. 2 young lads brought just a towel and a sheet and went back for pillowcases.

When we started putting the next sheet on it had 3 holes in it and the towel was as bad as the previous one. Another sheet and towel came, when the lad started putting it on….more holes, off he went again and changed the sheet.

We decided the duvet wasn’t being replaced but to be honest it’s pretty hot anyway.

Just as we got undressed a replacement brand new duvet arrived. Like a tv sitcom really.

Finally got into bed at 11.30pm.

No hope of sleeping with a child from a nearby room running up and down the hallway screeching and the clunky sound of their door bolts incessantly opened and closed. By 12.45am it was quiet.

Well apart from maniacs driving at full pelt with their horns going.

First impressions of Kozhikode..arrrggghhhhh but with good food.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings!