Arrived in Kochi (Cochin) in the southern state Kerala.

Since my last blog post I have spent my days in Ooty - my Ooty-visit turned out to be much longer than expected because of illness and train tickets that are hard to get: two nights ended up being five nights. Five cooold nights!
On the 20st of January I finally went on the trek that I'd planned to do the 18th and it was such a good trek - exactly what I came to Ooty for! Tea plantations, lovely views and village visiting. We were 8 persons on the trek plus the guide, Anthony, and we had a really cosy time. Among the persons on the trek was Rick from the UK whom I spent my last days in Ooty with. We had a really good time trying to escape the traffic jam og pollution which unfortunately are very dominating in Ooty town - that was also a really big plus about the trekking: the getting away from traffic and pollution. So on the 21st Rick and I went to the Botanical Gardens of Ooty, which was such a nice spot - we were there for about 4-5 hours! :) watching indian families and couples having a good time and taking tons of photos of themselves. We also spent time at Cafe Coffee Day - an indian version of Starbucks where we got the best iced coffees! - and just got really well along.

On the 22nd I finally left Ooty going towards warmer weather. I travelled by a toy train from Ooty to Mettupalayam which is supposed to have lovely views over the Nilgiri Hills. Unfortunately the ticket system functions really badly so I only got a waiting list ticket meaning that I had to sit in the General Carriage where you need to be quick to get a seat. I luckily got a seat but the carriage just kept on filling up - when you would believe it was totally full even more people jumped on! There were two benches with space for arround 5 people on each - we were 17(!) in one carriage! It was so damn crowded and hot that I didn't really get anything out of the lovely views. The train was right on time, though, which is quite unseen in India..
From Mettupalayam I said goodbye to Rick, who was going towards Ponducherry in Tamil Nadu, and travelled further on towards Kochi with Jay, an elder English lady I met at my hotel in Ooty, and Joeri, a dutch guy I met on the train station, who both were going towards the same destination as me. We slept too well in the train because we actually missed Kochi station. D'oh! So in the middle of the night we had to catch another train going back to Kochi. We finally arrived early in the morning and took the ferry to Fort Cochin (Kochi is built up of islands) where we now have got accommodation. We were really lucky to get a huuuge double room (arround 3x12 meters) with an extra madras in the center of Fort Cochin for 600 rupees a night - a bit more than 20 DKK pr. person pr. night. Lovely!
After a shower and some breakfast we went for a walk on the island and I ended up in this internet cafe afterwards. The weather is lovely - nice and warm, so I am looking forward to a night where I am not going to freeze.

My further plans are not yet settled, however, I have made a big decision: I AM STAYING IN INDIA FOR ALL 3 MONTHS OF TRAVELLING! I'm really glad with this decision because I then don't need to rush from place to place and instead have plenty of time to really get into India and its culture.

Hope you're all good.

All the best
Signe