India Travel || Kerala Travel|| Kochi travel plan|| What to do in Kochi|| travel plan for Kochi|| Kochi or Fort Kochi, where to go|| South India Travel
If you are reading this, I am hoping that you did go through my last blogs on Lakshadweep. So before starting our cruise to Lakshadweep, we spent some nights in Kochi. Now again, if you regularly follow my travel plans, then you know that I have been to Kerala before. In 2019, I did my Solo trip to Kerala. That time I stayed at Fort Kochi for 2 nights and walked all through the island.. ohhhh!!! some great great days spent that time.. so if going to Kochi, I won’t miss Fort Kochi for a thing..
But.. there is a but here.. since this time I travelled with my parents, and there was this another trip after this, I decided to keep the stay at Kochi city.. and keeping the main city a base.. we moved around. Also, previously I hadn’t seen much of the city of Kochi (a bit though, like the Marine Drive, a bit here and there, but this time was better), keeping in mind, this was after 5 years we came back here, hence a lot of things had changed. SO I wanted to see it all. Excited?? I am.. because I am going to give you some plans..
Duration:
So we stayed for 3 nights here, It’s not much if you ask me.. I loved the city and whatever plans I had, 3 nights were necessary.
Where to stay:
In Kochi city, MG Road is the place to stay at. That’s the central area of the city, very well connected, quite busy yet good. From Airport this area is about 25km away.. not directly connected by metro yet. But from ALuha, there is a Metro service available.
You can stay near or at the Marine Drive area.. but I don’t regret choosing MG Road.. it’s very central. Food, shopping, connectivity.. nothing was a problem here and Willingdon Island is quite close from here.. hence you see my point right?
Travel plan:
So our travel plan was very simple.. one day Fort Kochi and one day shopping around Kochi city.. travelling with the ‘lady of the house’ means shading a lot of money. But for a change I enjoyed it and we ate like anything, also a bit of, shopped like anything.. I will give you more details as we come to each point..
Fort Kochi:
OOhh.. the love of my life (only thing is.. not the ‘one and only’ love of my life but Fort Kochi has a part of my heart kept very safe)..
So from Kochi, you can go via ferry (the metro ferry will be starting soon), via local bus, uber & private car. I wanted to go by Bus, there are bus services available from MG road, it costs about INR 25.00 pp. it took about 40 minutes by bus on a Sunday, can be little more on weekdays. we started at around 10 in the morning because we just wanted to enjoy the place. Even you don’t need to start early. Because you can spend a good time here on the island. If you want to return by bus, the last bus leaves for Kochi at 9:45 PM.
The last ferry from Fort Kochi to Kochi is at 4pm.. water Metro will be starting soon, hopefully, you will have one more suitable option available soon.
Transportation done, now what we did at Fort Kochi?? Roamed around!! Simple.. Honestly, that was the plan.. I love walking around the streets of Fort Kochi, and parents agreed as well, hence we were walking around the beach area, the Jew town. But things have changed so much you know.. its so much touristy.. there were auto drivers at every 10 steps, wanted to show the place around (it will cost about 400-600, you may bargain), then you can now hire bicycles to roam around the place. Basically it’s all touristy now.. but the essence of the place is still the same. I had to dodge every auto driver, as I really wanted to walk around and of course, I knew the place. We did go to Matancherry palace, the synagogue but skipped the rest.
Walking across the beach was amazing. There are so many street food stalls now, then toy shops, this-that, all across the beach. By the way, you should try the raw mango served with the salted spice.. they taste yummmmm..
Then we came to Jew town.. again so many shops there.. very colourful though & good for buying souvenirs.. but I found the same restaurants available, still running and loved it. We kind of spent the entire afternoon here in Fort Kochi. We didn’t wait till evening as my parents were getting tired.. we took the ferry from Fort Kochi and came to Kochi, it drops you at Marine Drive and Voila.. our next stop aka evening plan was auto-made.
*** If you need more details on what to see in Fort Kochi, you can check my old blogs.
Marine Drive:
Marine drive is basically a looong (really long.. you can walk for an hour to one end of the drive and come back in another one hour) well-built walkaway by the sea to spend a breezy, comfy evening with some munchies. The munchies you will get from the food stalls there. That’s it. There is nothing much to talk about Marine Drive and you can spend hours here. Sit, walk, eat, talk, even gossip or maybe spend some time with yourself. It’s a great place to hang out, when you have a place to hang out, surely, you automatically get your memories, my words can be crisp and short here.
Lulu Mall:
It is said to be one of the biggest malls in Asia. So the lady-of-the-house wanted to pay a visit. We took the metro from MG Road to Vyttila. That was our stop to go to Lullu mall but what did we see here!!! If you want to go to the mall, there is direct access to the mall straight from the metro station. So you won’t have to come out of the station but you directly go to the mall from the metro station.. I found it very interesting.
Now the mall.. big international brands to local brands.. everything is here. This place is almost like a small village. To finish a round of the place will take at least 2 hours. Then there is this hypermarket on the ground floor.. this is the biggest hypermarket I have seen in my life.. I thought Carrefour was the biggest supermarket I have seen so far.. but this was something else.. a thorough round (just a round) will take an hour here.. you will get every possible thing.. they have long sections for each product… say ice cream/ chocolates/ fish/ chicken/ meat.. everything for household chores.. Phew… it was some round and the number of people.. I never could imagine this. Thanks to the lady of the house.. yes, out of the odds, I am being thankful..
We ate here, the food court is very interesting, they have quite a variety but my favourite was a Kulfi shop we found. It was expensive but the flavoured Kulfis were relishing. You can easily spend a good 4-6 hours easily here and you won’t even realize.
Food & Shopping:
After Lulu Mall (we did some shopping there), we came back to MG Road by metro. We wanted to buy sarees, and I had marked a few shops here.. so headed straight there. You can buy quite a few things here, like Indian wear, especially sarees, jewellery, both gold and fashionable ones, perfumes etc.
Then there are good restaurants to enjoy local food. I also found a good Ice cream parlour close to our hotel and it was good.
Then there are a good restaurants to enjoy local food. I also found a good Ice cream parlour close to our hotel and it was good. The name of the ice cream shop is ‘The original American Creamery (coldstone Creamery India).
Chips: this is a must mention. Kerala is known for its chips. So you will get a few shops on MG road.. but you should buy your chips from Aluha. ALuha is on the way to the airport.. they have made this chips city (basically a stretch of the road lined with chips shops) and you get good chips here. My favourite is Jackfruit, banana and tapioca. Now a days there have different flavours of chips but I love my no flavour chips.. oo they were typically Kerala and so very good. You can also buy Cashew here.. but I recommend buying your nuts and spices from Fort Kochi. You get good spices there. We made our chips stop on the last day on our way to the Airport.
Transportation in Kochi:
Public transport is well available and very safe to take. Public buses, Uber auto, metro, all are well available. There are metro taxis available in some parts of the city but I didn’t get the chance to experience it this time.. maybe next time.. of course, there will be a next time.. I will again go for it.. Point is, public transport is very safe here.
Safety:
The city didn’t seem like staying awake for very long at night.. not that I am a night person to give you exact details but the city is very safe.. I didn’t come across anything odd to complain about. People are helpful, they try to share information if they know.
MY Travel Plan this time:
Basically, we did 3-night Kochi + 4 nights cruise to Lakshadweep and then back to Kochi, we took the flight back home on the same day. Itinerary was simple, no rush, just the way I like.. but we had fun. Lady of the house was boasting of this trip.. such a relief…
That’s all.. I will be back with my next travel story very soon.. till then keep travelling.. Love you..
** If you want more travel details on Fort Kochi, then read my older blog posts of Kochi.
TurtleGotWings 