Day 1

Finally first day of the trip. But I must admit it was overwhelming experience - in both positive and negative sense. Plenty of things were the way I expected or should expect, but still surprising. Other stuff were pure surprise.

But let's start out at the point where I left at [[Day 0 (Thursday, 19.12.2024)|Day 0]]. When I landed I still had long process of immigration check-in. Individually maybe wasn't that long, but there were so many people in the queue that only at 5 am (local time) I finally was at the gates of airport (while I landed at 3 am). But then buying SIM card also taken time. Already tired, sleepy and overwhelmed, it was just around 6 am so I have had whole day ahead of me, but I wasn't sure how to start. I didn't know how to find myself. It looked like everyone takes taxi so I opted for that too. Asked about Fort Kochi and was surprised with the price, but I soon learned that it is around 50 km from airport.

See, that was my first big surprise. Distances and travel time. And the way this city or rather metropolitan area is. There is nomenclature confusion. There is Fort Kochi / Kochi / Cochin / Ernakulam. Sometimes they are used interchangeably, sometimes not, I'm not sure how exactly that works. When I was in more core parts of Kochi, I realized that there are some other reasons to underestimate travel time just by looking at the map. One is that whole this metropolitan area is group of islands so sometimes you need to go really around to somewhere that on the map looks close. Second is the traffic - of course traffic, it's still India in the end, even if not Tier-I City like Mumbai or Bengaluru.

I was in Fort Kochi very early in the morning. I was very tired, I barely slept in the airplane and I didn't sleep at all day before travel. There were some mishap with finding place to stay for me. My friend was hospitalized and on its own it was huge blow to my mood, but also it didn't help me on level of organization. I was carrying around my heavy suitcase, because I had some hotel planned in different district/island, so until evening.

All of that exhausted my mental strength and I should know better, but I didn't resist fully all the scam attempts thrown at me. At first I was firmly refusing, but I was exhausted and little wasn't sure what to do next before I settle at hotel. I agreed for some tuk tuk driver to show me things around. Guy supposed to show me around with famous landmarks, but in the meantime he also was stopping at the shops. First situation like that felt like a trap, it was spice shop and I felt that cool, I want to buy some. But other shops were connected, like souvenirs and other stuff. But then they really tried to sell me something expensive - like carpet. I could write long essay on all manipulative techniques they have been using, but I don't want to. It threw bad shadow at plethora other experiences I had.

All that physical and mental exhaustion. Heavy sleep deprivation, carrying around heavy suitcase in not suitable terrain, bad news from friend, hotel mishap. I had a lot of good experiences too, but as I'm writing that paragraph at the end of [[Day 2 (Saturday, 21.12.2024)|Day 2]] I know that all of that things happened next day too, but even more amplified so I will cover that next.

When I finally reached my hotel I didn't really do much except some shower, watching some random malayalam tv and let's say "maintenance" - communication with my friend, repacking etc. In the end I went to sleep quite early, even before 8 pm.

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