Kerela & Maldives

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helan72

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hi - looking at both options for a holiday - bit of adventure for the first week and the total relaxation on the second - does anyone have any recommendations for either area - thanks
 
Sounds lovely but the big problem you could face is connecting flights. I tried to do a similar trip for my honeymoon i.e Africa then Maldives but just couldn't get it done without several stops.
 
helan72 said:
hi - looking at both options for a holiday - bit of adventure for the first week and the total relaxation on the second - does anyone have any recommendations for either area - thanks
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Kerela India? If yes I spent time then and would recommend it. If you do mean Kerela India I can recommend loads of stuff to do but don't want to waste your time if I am wrong
 
I would prefer Kerala to Maldives any day. If it's sun and sand you want, why go thousands of miles? Kerala, on the other hand, offers such diverse and wonderful oppotunites, that it's worth the long flight to get there. I flew Qatar from London to Cochin with one stop in the Emerates. Tour the country by car, with your own driver, and spend the last few days on a house-boat on the Backwaters. Heaven. I can recommend the travel agent that I used, he was absolutely spot on
 
ClickityClic said:
I would prefer Kerala to Maldives any day. If it's sun and sand you want, why go thousands of miles? Kerala, on the other hand, offers such diverse and wonderful oppotunites, that it's worth the long flight to get there. I flew Qatar from London to Cochin with one stop in the Emerates. Tour the country by car, with your own driver, and spend the last few days on a house-boat on the Backwaters. Heaven. I can recommend the travel agent that I used, he was absolutely spot on
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I am guessing Kerala India from this person response.

I agree with everything above. I spent a month in Bangalore and travelled to Fort Cochin/ Kerala for a weekend. We stayed in a great hotel that was.... wait for it.... 2 euro a night!
It's a fishing town so the food is also amazing and the backwaters tour is fabulous it was the highlight of my month. Depending on how long you are staying you could do a bit of traveling also. It was a 14 hour bus trip for us to get there so maybe not that but I think you can get to hampi (also incredible)
 
I've been to the Maldives a few times and loved it. Its been a while though so my info might be out of date. Theres about 1000 islands and they range from 3 star to the most luxurious. There seems to be two main groups of people. The honeymooners/couples and the groups of divers. You can go the whole chillout be pampered bit. Or you can spend the whole time in the sea as the Maldives is one of the best diving and snorkeling locations in the world. Thats why you go thousands of miles to it.

We've been to a basic smaller island with a great reef, fantastic swimming, diving and snorkeling, which was great and chilled out, but quiet. As the divers don't drink much and go to bed early, up early etc. We have also been to a bigger island that had a more mixed crowd and thus more crack in the bar at night. They'd usually have better range water sports equipment too. People doing a week in india and then a week in Maldives was quite common. Personally I'd avoid the charter flights as they are crammed and its a long flight. We went scheduled flights last time, and while the journey time was even longer, it was far more enjoyable, if expensive.

Theres no shopping, and really theres not much to see on the capital on the day trip. The only real point in leaving your island is to check out a different reef for diving/snorkeling/fishing trip. I think having full or half board is better as then you don't have to worry about watching every penny.

It depends what you are looking for tbh.
 
Hi all - thanks for that - yes it is kerela india and i am hoping to be there for approx 12 days - so all info is greatly appreciated - many thanks
 
Kerela India = excellent.

Ok since you have 12 days I would definitely recommend doing a full day backwater tour as part of that absolutely amazing. One of the highlights of my whole month. It's not very expensive I can't remember how much exactly but we (a group of 5) ended up having to get one just for us outside of normal hours and I think it only came to a few euro each. It cost 450rupees each so less than 8 euro each and be sure to bring a camera and if you are going soon in good weather lots of sun protection you will be in open water at times so pretty exposed.
Hmm theres the Kerela museum of history. and I would recommend avoiding it. We went and it was photocopies (literally) of things like the mona lisa. We saw the funny side but it was a bit of a waste of time. Upstairs in the place there are some dolls which date the different changes in India dress throughout the years which is pretty cool but if you are going for the art don't bother.

If you are going from Fort Cochin to the mainland be sure to take the regular ferry crossing. We got caught out on that the first time around and got a private boat (which we thought was the only way) and it cost 200 rupees each the regular ferry back cost just 7.5rupees each! !!!

Food is really reasonable there are some amazing places to eat and really cheap in one place 12 drinks 6 mains and 7 starters came to just under 12 euro!!!

We went to see the old dutch architeture in mattincherry too. This was a bit of an anti-climax we were there standing looking for it and it was right in front of us.

One bit of advice is don't believe everything you read in things like the lonely planet guides they will makes things out to sound greater than they are but they are still pretty good!

The hotel we stayed it was hotel cochin which was ok but we came across this amazing place on our walk to mattincherry it was in fort cochin and it was called The Treehouse.
There were rooms all decorated with Indian art and an upstairs eating area where you would eat on the floor with beanbags. We regretted not staying there. If we had stayed another night we would have definitely stayed there and it wasn't expensive. If you stay elsewhere do try and go there the guy will show you all the rooms free of charge you just walk in off the street it is so colorful you won't miss the place its a really good experience. You could probably find cheaper accommodation but maybe try staying here for just one night. One of our group went back later in the month and stayed there and said it was fab!

Hmm I believe there are loads of watersports in Kerela too and other trips I never had the chance to do these unfortunately maybe someone else could give advice about these.
Since you will be there for 12 days I will go look up and see if any of the other places we visited would be close enough for you to take a trip to for a bit of a break in the middle. I will report back later.

Note - I have no affiliation with any of the above mentioned places
 
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