Hospitals in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram will feel more familiar than you expect: English on the walls, monitors, a coffee counter. The city around them will not. That is fine. You are not required to “experience India.” You are required to get well enough to fly.
Climate
Hot and humid most of the year. The southwest monsoon (roughly June–September) is loud and beautiful and will soak you between the car and the portico. We plan around it; we do not cancel medicine for it.
Food
Hospital kitchens we use can do plain, vegetarian, halal. Kerala food at its best is coconut, fish, rice — we will not make you eat it the night before a general anaesthetic. Ask. Companions can eat better than patients; that is allowed.
Money and Sundays
Cards work in our hospitals. Small cash helps for nothing important. Many shops close or slow on Sundays. Churches, temples and mosques are part of ordinary life; nobody will require you to enter any of them.
Manners on the ward
Families are present in a way that can surprise UK patients. Staff may seem formal and then suddenly familiar. A coordinator exists so you do not have to decode this while you are in pain.