I'm a Celebrity - Get me out of Kochi!

We arrived at Ernaculum Town station in Kochi later than expected – it was already getting close to dusk. We didn’t know it, but we still had another 1 hour journey to take us to our guesthouse in Fort Kochi.

Outside the train station, there was a large queue and surprisingly orderly system for taking a rickshaw. Instead of picking one up from the street and haggling a price, you first go to a booth and pay 1 rupee to the cashier. After stating your destination, he gives you a ticket and a fixed price that you must pay to your rickshaw driver on arrival. The rickshaws are all queued up waiting for customers, just like taxis at an airport.

It was a long journey from the station to Fort Kochi since the driver had to take a long detour south to reach the bridges. There were two long stretches of river we needed to cross. After that we had the busy rush hour traffic to deal with before reaching Fort Kochi.

It can be cheaper (and quicker) to take a ferry followed by a shorter rickshaw ride, but after a long day travelling in a Sleeper Class coach, we really didn’t want the extra hassle.

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Sleeper Class to Kochin

Our next destination after Varkala was Kochin. 5 days earlier, while we were still in Kovalam, we had purchased train tickets from a Travel Agent. He had explained to us which ticket classes were available for a trip from Varkala to Kochin, and advised us not to take Sleeper Class or 2nd Class tickets.

Through him, we managed to book 2 seats on the Rajdhani Express in an AC2 class coach. The train would take us from Varkala to Ernakulam station near Kochin. We paid just over 2,000 rupees (€39) for these tickets, including agents fees.

Kochin Train Station – Platform 1

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The Windswept Cliffs of Varkala

The next place of interest travelling north up the coast from Kovalam is Varkala. This journey takes almost 2 hours by taxi and cost us 1,800 rupees (€25). There is just one bus that goes there direct, leaving Kovalam at 6-15 am. Otherwise you have to change buses in Trivandrum. They say the direct bus takes 2 hours, but in practice its more likely 3 to 4 hours.

Once in Varkala, you’ ll need to travel another 7-8 km to reach the beach resorts. This will cost around 100 rupees in a rickshaw. Whilst in Varkala town make sure you visit an ATM to get cash, because there are no ATMs in the beach resorts. There are a couple of ATM machines in town, but the most reliable is the one next to the train station.

There are several fruit vendors in Varkala that are worth visiting, as well as hawkers selling watermelons on the roadside. Apart from stocking up on fruit and getting cash from the ATM, there’s little other reason to visit Varkala town. It’s just another unremarkable Indian town with little to offer foreigners.

A Feast of Fruit in Varkala

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Kovalam Lighthouse Beach

One week before arriving in Kovalam, I sent an email to our hotel requesting an airport pickup. The fact that I got no reply should have been an early warning sign.

When we arrived at Trivandrum airport, I reckoned there was a 50/50 chance that someone would be waiting to pick us up.

There was no-one.

No problem. Instead we took a prepaid taxi that cost 500 rupees (€7) – half the price that the hotel would have charged us.

We found our run-down looking hotel not far from the taxi drop-off in Kovalam. The Vedante Wake-up is part of a chain of guesthouses in India. We were not too surprised to see there was some confusion about our booking: Clearly they were not expecting us. However, this wasn’t going to be a problem since there happened to be rooms available.

The Lighthouse Beach at Kovalam is a 500-meter strip of restaurants, bars and local shops. The beach itself is divided between a dozen or so hawkers who will rent you 2 beds & umbrella for anything between 100 and 400 rupees for the day (€1.50 – €6).

100 rupees for a 1/2 day – including a bucket of water for your feet

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Jet Airways Inflight Experience

Several weeks before starting our trip to India, we went online and booked 2 domestic flights directly with Jet Airways.

We booked the following one-way flights, inclusive all fees:

♦  Mumbai-Trivandrum (4,043 rupees per person. Approximately €56)

♦  Goa-Mumbai (2,556 rupees per person. Approximately €35)

The Jet Airways website and booking procedure is straightforward and efficient, and we received our PDF eTickets within a few minutes by email.

Jet Airways Departure Gate in Mumbai

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