Kochi & Varkala

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The bus trip from Kumily to Kochi was the worst yet despite our early boarding and claiming of winner seats (at the front with loads of leg room and bags beside us). It was very hot and Ash was sitting directly in the sun for over 6 hours, although luckily didn't burn thanks to the trusty old sun cream and straw hat. The bus was completely over crowded and there were about 50 people standing at some points. It moved very slowly and we suspect this had something to so with the sticker on the front window claiming a speed restricter was fitted and the bus couldn't go above 60km an hour. We couldn't confirm this was true though as the speedometer didn't work at all! There was only one stop for tea and bladder relief which was at a roadside tea stand and no toilets were available. Boo, hiss. We did however obtain flavoured sugar sweets with which we played sweet roulette, grape was the uncontended winner with paan trailing in last. Ade was the sucker on that one! We had a contingency pack of chocolate biscuits to keep us going though.

After we'd asked several randoms where to get the ferry from and having received a variety of uncorrelated answers we finally got a rickshaw to take us to the port and hopped aboard. Kochi is a port and has a few different areas, the two we were ferried between were Ernakulaum (the main land where most people and industry is) and Fort Kochi (a peninsular + old Dutch and Portugese colonial port). Fort Kochi is very European and caters to the majority of tourists with great restaurants, sites (Chinese fishing nets, St. Francis's Church - oldest European built in India allegedly) and cheap but decent accommodation. We stayed in the Princess Inn on Princess Street and found the two guys really friendly and helpful.

We organised to see a Kathakali performance and to take a tour down the backwaters of Kerala through our guesthouse. Kathakali is an old Keralan dance which translated means 'story dance'. The performance consists of men spending an hour applying thick face paints made from local leaves and stone (40 mins of which we spent in the restaurant next door sampling the 'special' tea aka beer) and then acting out a demonstration of what the movements and hand signals means. It was
interesting enough but did get a tad tiresome after a while, especially the enactment of an elephant being a 5 minute dance when as Ade pointed out, reaching his arm out in front of his face and waving it about trunk-like would have covered it in about 5 seconds. Actor covered it alright with the monkey dance, hopping around and scratching his head, arm pits and ass all of which took about 30 seconds. Anyway, once the story started we were glad of our print out explaining the characters by their colour of make up and the story line. Plot was explained in two sentences on sheet but took 45 minutes to act out. Culturally informative but we won't be signing up to see any repeat performances! After the show we felt we deserved a treat and seeing as it was right across the road we headed into the History Restaurant for the most expensive meal of the trip to date. Poor Ade was unable to relax the whole way through thinking of how many nights accommodation we were eating so we didn't have any drinks and bailed pretty quickly. When we got out we realised we'd missed the government off license so Ade had more to fret about on the way home. We did make it the next night, but only just. There was a big line of people all stressing about getting served and the guys working there looked like they were contenders on Supermarket Sweep franticly scurrying between customers and shelves keeping a careful eye on the time. It was quite funny to watch :-)

The trip down the backwaters was great. A bus picked us up from our place and drove around a few other guesthouses and hotels collecting the rest of our party before setting out on an hour trip to the boat. We arrived at a house boat made from what looked like wicker bound together with coconut fibre rope. There was no engine or oars to propel us downriver, instead a guy at either end had a huge approx. 10 ft bamboo pole which they drove into the river bed and walked down the length of the stern. It looked like tiring work and the guy said he did it 7 days a week 9 months a year. The trip was relaxing and slow so we'd plenty of time to observe village life in the backwaters stopping at a lime factory (they make lime powder out of mussel shells), a coconut fibre spinning place, stopped on a tiny island for a traditional Keralan lunch and even spotted a water snake. Sampled tapioca crisps and curry flavoured nuts from a local government funded shop. The journey back to the starting point was down a big open river and as everyone was full after lunch, we and most of our fellow passengers slept for an hour or so.

Our final day of sight seeing was a non event. The heat delayed us from setting off and our stubbornness about a fair price for a rickshaw meant we walked for longer than we would have liked to the Dutch Palace and Jew town missing viewing times for both the palace and synagogue. We did wander down throught the streets and walk through a few interesting shops and after some meandering eventually found the Jain temple. It looked like they were having a party with lively music and colourful flags decorating the grounds. We weren't allowed in the check it out though. The morning we left we realised we'd left our pill box for our malaria tablets (a nice rosewood box with a boat piture we got in Munnar) somewhere and Ash had misplaced her hat so we went on a whirlwind recovering mission but were only successful with the hat.

The journey to Varkala beach was fairly uneventful. We hung around the train station and then got a train. It was dark when we got to the beach and found out there was a festival on that night. We checked out a few rooms but settled for the 200Rp (approx 2.50 gbp) a night, pretty decent place with steps to beach less than a minute walk away. We spent the entire 4 days on the beach, in the bar next door (Blue Moon) or hungover in or outside our room. Varkala beach is underneath a huge cliff and all the shops, bars and accommodation is at the top on the cliff edge, literally! The view is great and one night we saw the most breathtaking sunset either of us has ever seen. The whole sky looked like a canvas painted different colours from yellow, orange and blue gradually fading to pink, purples and ending in a deep red ball in an otherwise black sky. We went back the next night but it didn't compare. Restaurants in Varkala have a fridge unit outside where they display the day's catch which was similar to Kovalam. On our second night we ate at the Blue moon and shared another red snapper this time cooked in lemon, ginger and garlic. It was delicious! After we'd finished a few beers and the place had all but emptied the guys at the table next to us asked if we'd like to watch their game of cards. Turns out they were playing Rummy for cash (20 rupes per game) and after their first game was finished we joined in, first as a team and then we split up and played separately. The night flew by with others coming in for a bit and then leaving once bust. It was enough to have us hooked and we came back the next two nights for a game but it never materialised as there were too many customers (the guys working there were playing cards as well as a few of their friends who worked in shops and bars along the strip). A big hello to Vidu, Vinod, Ali, Syd and Rex!!!

During our stay in Varkala we indulged in some retail therapy resulting in new brightly coloured hippy clothes being purchased and some cool jewellery for Ash as well as a new pill box. At the first place we browsed the guys offered to swap Ash's pants for a new shirt + pants she's tried on. At first we thought they were joking but the next day we ran into them again and they said offer was still there if she wanted to swap her pants for something or they'd buy them off her. We laughed it off and continued down the strip stopping at another place which happened to be owned by the same family (oldest owned the first shop with youngest working there, middle brother in second place). While we were chatting to the middle brother the younger came in and starting on about the pants again, which by the way are green and have pink flowers along the top at the back and cost a whole 11 euro at Penney's (Primark), not exactly high fashion. And the younger brother wanted them to wear himself! Ash decided in the end to hang on to her pants and bought the other clothes much to the whole family's dismay, although the fact that we had bought 4 items of clothes from them lessened the blow!

So that's about all we got up to in Varkala, next step was a train to Trivandrum to catch an overnight train to Goa. We travelled in second a/c which had a catering service with yummy food as well as sheets, blankets and pillows. Talk about travelling in style!

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Comments

[mat]

reading your adventure from the start, i've just realized i could place a comment! Wonderful stories with plenty of funny anecdotes and pictures (the "cow from hell" one was pretty funny!)! keep it on, i can't wait for the next report!! ;)

[mom]

varkala looks like an ideal spot for a holiday. i hope you are taking note of the names of accommodation for me and dad