Arriving in Kochi

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Our attitude before leaving was that we weren't going to suffer culture shock when arriving in India. The problem is that optimistic thinking and nine months planning doesn't really change the fact that this is so unlike anything we have ever experienced. At the moment it feels like a touch of culture shock. Everything from buzzing mosquitoes, potentially carrying malaria, chikungunya or dengue, to spending 45 minutes in a taxi, weaving in and out between motorbikes, lorries, pedestrians and cows, with the driver honking the horn every 2 seconds, is all rather different from our secluded, protected and very safe daily routine in England.

We very quickly realised that Indian traffic is not as chaotic as it seems; there is an elaborate pattern of movement by the different vehicles. That the most important part of any vehicle in India is its horn is no coincidence: it is used to signal presence. So, every time a manouvre which could potentially involve another vehicle occurs the horn is sounded. And it being India (lots of traffic) this is all the time. Sometimes though, it is almost as if the driver believes that his horn has the same effect as a pump on a tire: intensified usage of the horn will clearly physically blow other vehicles out of the way.

And the heat, especially the humidity, is stifling. Apparently, it takes two weeks to acclimatise.

When we landed in Kochi everything was, as expected, Indian. There was a nice touch of bureaucracy about passport control, and it took a long time to get through. Every passenger was, on the plane, handed an arrival form. Apparently, this was meant to be filled in before trying to get through passport control. Of course many people didn't, which contributed to delaying the procedure. Never mind, we had our passports checked, handed over the top half of the arrival form and went through another, clearly unnecessary, baggage scan. As we were about to leave we were delighted to hand over the second part of the arrival form to yet another official.

Kochi Airport is quite a distance from Kochi and Ernakulam. Being who we are, we have decided to stay away from the traditional tourist areas in Kochi. Instead we are staying at Bharat Sarovaram, which is located 10 kilometers away from the central part of Ernakulam. Unsurprisingly, we are the only non-Indians here.
Our reason for choosing this particular hotel is that it was built using the principles of Laurie Baker. The main principles in his architecture are sustainability, suitability and affordability. This means that the buildings are made of red brick, and the amount of concrete used in the construction is limited; the hotel has its own lake in which water is collected, extracted and cleaned; and electricity is saved whenever possible. We found that this wasn't entirely practical. We have already had two power cuts, which in itself is a power saver. But when we returned from a small walk (where the photos for this post were taken) we encountered the longest power cut yet. We had erected the mosquito nets and decided to take a nap in the hope that the power, and thereby the fan, would come back on. When we woke an hour later we had to call reception and ask if they had any idea how long the present power cut would last. Funnily, we were the only ones who were experiencing a power cut. Now, we did have a feeling that this power cut was, in some way, self-induced. We had tried different switches in the hope that one of them was a main switch, but little had it helped. The friendly porter kindly told us that in order for the electricity to work, the room key had to be inserted into the wall. Great. We had just spent an hour in a nap of sweating delusion and it had been completely preventable.

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This entry was posted by pundabee, on Friday, November 10, 2006. You can leave your response.