Category: Kozhikode

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!

A day in Kozhikode

14.2.19

Off we went to explore this city.

One of the highest rated things to do here is S.M. Street. Originally it was all sweet meats but now it’s a fairly long street with some small alleys and roads from it, although the stench of urine makes some difficult to explore.

No longer just sweets, mainly clothes, shoes, bags, fabric, decorative jewellery and the inevitable shops selling plastic items.

From there we walked to Kozhikode beach. Once again google maps took us down little alleyways, but this time there was a way out at the other end.

The beach is impressive but a backdrop of rubbish and building materials massively lets it down.

We saw a crazy dog chasing a jet ski, super cute and we called him over when it stopped. He was so excited and leapt all over us, leaving us very soggy and sandy. He followed us for a while and had a great time with John throwing sticks for him.

I paddled in the Arabian Sea, it was incredibly warm.

Kozhikide is the hottest place we’ve been to so far, we were warned by our driver in Munnar that it would be very hot.

Again, the beach is only really used in the evening by locals who stand at the waters edge in the evenings and use the little stalls to buy snacks or take picnics, so nowhere shady to sit for a while or have a drink.

Our little dog got set upon by a pack further along, we felt guilty as he had followed us into their territory but he was having none of it and saw them all off in the other direction. Thankfully it meant we didnt have to keep him.

We headed for Focus Mall, voted the best locally. The air conditioning was much needed, as was a break from the incessant traffic horns, just heavenly.

John had planned to take me for dinner at a Paragon group restaurant as it’s Valentines Day but we will have to go to bed very early as we have a 7am flight to Delhi tomorrow.

As luck would have it M Grill is part of Paragon and had a restaurant in the food court and we were starving.

The menu was fabulous, many of the usual Keralan dishes, but also dishes from across the world, even shepherds pie!

I chose the shrimp pasta, John had tenderloin steak and we chose a couple of mocktails. It was all perfect.

We then went into a clothes store that was like an Indian Primark / LC Waikiki. Spent ages in there, so many beautiful Indian clothes and some more western items. I bought 2 t shirts, and 2 lovely tops and a red Valentines t shirt for John.

They don’t provide bags but for 5 rupees you can buy a bag made of a stiff paper/cotton material, a much more environmentally friendly idea than paying to get plastic.

We decided to make our way back to the hotel as nothing else really to see. Its just a huge sprawling town, incredibly noisy and grubby.

We passed some very sad areas, this one particularly, it’s dreadful that this poverty still exists and worlds apart from the luxury food and shopping 20 minutes walk away.

Really makes you think and count your blessings.

Near the hotel is a supermarket, quite a rarity, so we went in search of ice cream. The staff were very smily and welcoming, we were clearly the first foreigners ever to shop there.

We seemed to be the only foreigners in the entire city and felt eyes on us the entire time. The staring is relentless and goes on for far too long!

We bought a 400g tub of Carte D’Or creme brulee ice cream, suggested serving size 54g.

Of course we scoffed the lot while playing rummikub back in our air conditioned room.

No it isn’t sugar free, but it is Valentines Day. And we walked nearly 13km today.

I was a little worried by the date stamp on the ice cream. December 2018, and it was very frosty all the way through but John maintained it was fine and that it was the date it was made. It didn’t stop us enjoying it.

Later we popped out for a last pineapple juice and John had 2 battered fried bananas.

In bed at 8pm alarm set for 3.15am. Ola taxi (like Uber) booked for 4am. A bit nerve wracking as they will confirm 10 minutes before the journey.

Fell asleep almost instantly with headphones and a tv programme to drown out traffic and noisy guests.

2 reasons to visit Kozhikode :

1. To eat at M Grill.

2. To get a flight out of there.