Kochi (Fort Kochi) | INDIA

Finally arrived. It is an interesting city and the first of the European colonies in Colonial India occupied by the Portuguese in 1503. It was the main seat of Portuguese India until 1530 when then Goa was chosen instead. 

It seemed like a big city, but we didn't do much there, spent one day walking around and doing stuff for my visa (argh) and then decided to catch the ferry across to Fort Kochi, which is an old and pretty fishing village that back in the day was ruled by the Dutch for 112 years, until the British took over. So we decided to stay there for the remaining nights.

Ferry over to Fort Kochi

It was only 3 full days until New Year’s eve when we arrived. We spent a long time looking for accommodation on the first day, as there wasn't much availability and the left over were all a bit expensive due to the time of the year (new years). 
We managed to find an okay place, small but pretty close to everything which was handy, we walked everywhere basically and also during the search we managed to see a lot of the surrounding area, so not all negative. (yay)

Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica

 We really wished we had seen the famous back waters of kerala and spent a couple of nights on a boat cruising the waters, however most of it was sold out (NY) and the remaining boats were just ridiculously expensive. Another issue was that I still had that stomach issues which would make me go to the toilet many times per day haha so we figured next time we will start our next India Trip from where we stopped.

Laundry Service

Around there we were basically exploring the area. Met some locals, visited an old laundry service with old style washing and ironing, visited Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica, Dutch Cemetery, some motocross on the beach, checked out the famous Chinese fish nets where Viv had some fun pulling the ropes to help them out haha, visited the spice market which was very important back in the day and still is, pretty cool seeing all the different types of spices, tones of ginger drying in the sun. 
Ah, we saw some stunning tusked elephants too, sad tho to see them in chains... But anyway.
Poor chained elephant :(

We had a great time there 90% of it was happy except the only 3 things which were a bit frustrating. First, as soon as we settled in somewhere we went to a restaurant have dinner and we found out alcoholic drinks were forbidden in the Fort Kochi! Bummer! (Do some research duuuhh). However not everything was lost, to save our lives, 2 bars in the entire island were allowed to sell them. Anyway, it was manageable. (sounding just like an alcoholic hey lol)


Chinese Fishing nets and Viv


 And the other 2 issues were,  just a few hours before midnight (new years eve) we went to this 9D cinema they had inside of a container - which was pretty cool- and afterwards we went to this bar where we could get some Kingfisher beer and were having an awesome time. Bar was pretty full, got a few drinks, when we decided to pay to head to the beach to wait for the fireworks, viv realized he didn't have his wallet. ???????? wtf.


Viv helping pulling the fishing net up
Yes! That happened! We had to leave the bar without paying and begging to come back shortly with some money as I also didn't have any money on me. We still don’t know if he lost it during the shaky 9D cinema or if was a pickpocket. We went back to the cinema looked everywhere, asked a lot of people etc and of course couldn’t find it. 

It was gone! Oh what a hassle just about 2h before the fireworks on the beach where they burn this massive Santa at midnight. It was stressful, tuktuking around to the hotel and to find an ATM to get money out, then the bar to pay the beers, back to the hotel, calling all the banks to cancel all his cards blablablaa all of this with barely ANY space for a tuktuk to drive as the streets were EXTREMELY crowded…

Apparently they burnt this huge santa dude at midnight - we were calling it 'burning man' haha

How I spent my NY haha
At 23:45 he was done with the banks, sorted out and we could finally head to the beach to watch the fireworks and burning man when, the 3rd issue comes...guess what? Emergency toilet time HAHA! Aaaand flushing the toilet was exactly at 00:00! LOL 

We found it funny more than anything, oh well, we just missed out the biggest show ever in Kochi because of a diarrhea haha different experience, why not! Haha we still tried to get to the beach after that and we weren’t very successful because of the crazy crowds so not very pleasant. It was traffic jam of people, a human ocean, never seen it like that.
So we just walked around the pretty streets and saw some fireworks for the second midnight and went back to our place.

Hanging out with Santa

Overall it was a great experience, just think I should carry his wallet next trip! And passport, as before going to India we were in Bali and he lost his passport on the first night!!!! (!!!!!!!) I know... Hassles, time and $ wasted. 

 First day overseas - passport lost
Last day overseas - wallet lost
Bingo!

Great experiences tho, and hopefully lesson learnt!
Also, with a good company is always better. I would definitely go back, start from Kerala e see the places we didn’t have time to see.
Happy New Year - At least we managed to see some fireworks 

 Next day we had our flights to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to spend 2 days, break down the trip and hopefully get my visa and then fly back to Australia.

 And for our happiness, we were at the gate to board the airplane to KL, when I received an email!! It was the grant of my tourist visa to go back to the land down under! yay!! I thought I would have to stay in KL for a while and miss my flight, but it worked out perfectly! 

 As soon as we arrived in Australia, I went straight into the immigration office to let them know I was there and had to get back to my normal temp resident visa, as soon as I left  the immi office, I was granted permanent residency! 
What a start of year :) Happy days!!!

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