We have now spent two days in Cochin but we still need to get acclimatised. It feels really hot, almost like sauna. After all we observed a temperature jump of almost 40 degrees between Switzerland and Kerala! Luckily we did choose a room with an A/C, otherwise it would be difficult to get a good sleep in the heat. And we can also use the A/C to get our Swiss Chocolate back to a solid state In the picture on the right you see the view from our room.

Yesterday we went shopping in the city of Ernakulam on the mainland opposite to Cochin. Today we saw the old portuguese St. Francis Church, the oldest european build church where Vasco da Gama was buried, and some more shipping. Next we will try to visit the Paradesi Synagogue, on which I missed out last time when I was here with David.

At last we managed to book a houseboat trip in spite of the high season But before the boat trip we are going first to the cooler hills (we still have to decide between Munnar and Periyar) and to the beach at Varkala.

The bags are packed and we are ready to leave. Just one more night of sleep, then we will take the flight to Cochin, Kerala.
We will spend our Christmas holidays and the New Year somewhere between the beaches and the teagrower hills, the Nilgiri mountains.
I’m looking forward to the warm weather. The meteo says, today it was around 35°C, I guess no chance for white Christmas over there

Recently I have put up my own personal minaret:

If you want to build one for yourself: DIY minaret
But beware, if you are located in Switzerland then you are officially not allowed to build minarets anymore! You have been warned..

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well, err, that’s me!

You might not know it yet if you depend completely on this blog to keep up with my whereabouts, because I abandoned the blog a couple of months ago:
I have been home from my big journey since November.
I have been away for slightly more than a year. I spent about 8 months in India, and during the rest of the time I traveled in different parts of Asia
(in chronological order): Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey
You can see the full route on my travel map.

The trip was a fantastic experience with uncountable memories I am fond of. I will write down here on the blog various bits and anecdotes from the journey. And of course you will find loads of pictures in the gallery.

Now you might wonder if I made a typo in the title and it should correctly read “home again”. But no, I really mean it, in a couple of hours I will board a flight to Egypt in company with my brother. For the first week we booked a diving package in El-Quseir. After that, my brother will return home. My flight is on the 8th of January from Cairo, that leaves me with 10 days for traveling.

This time it will be kind of a new experience, because it is the first time I go traveling practically unprepared, quite unlike the last trip where I even took Hindi lessons for a year before starting. Now all preparation I did was ordering the lonely planet guide and a phrase book on amazon. So I have one weeks time during the stay in the diving resort to plan the rest of my trip.

Well then, I have to get a couple of hours sleep, have to catch the first train to the airport in the morning. Wish you happy Christmas and cya next year!