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Published: February 25th 2006
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I was hoping to catch the sunrise today but unfortunately it was so cloudy on the horizon that I was unsuccessful. After checking out, I had some time to kill before heading to the station, so I sat outside and watched Kanyakumari life unfold. This included a taxi that played "Silent Night" when it was reversing.
The train journey to Varkala was only about 3 hours. This seaside village had been added to my agenda only recently, when I had scrapped the idea of a multi-day backwater cruise further north in Kerala, deciding that 1 day would probably be enough for that. This freed up a couple of days in the schedule and, though beach holidays really aren't my thing, I thought I should probably see what an Indian seaside resort was like. Most people would probably think of Goa or places in Kerala such as Kovalam when they're thinking along those lines, but I wanted somewhere a little more low-key, which Varkala reputedly was.
Though there is a village slightly inland, the main tourist part of Varkala consists of the beach, which is backed by sheer red cliffs, and a cluster of hotels, restaurants, and shops that hug
a single path winding along the clifftops. I chose a room at the Hilltop Hotel that faced the sea and had a small verandah on which I could watch the various comings and goings on the path.
First impressions are that this is simply a Mediterranean resort shifted a few thousand kilometres south and east. There are numerous Europeans floating around, and 99% of the Indians are working here supporting the tourist industry rather than vacationing. Indian food is almost an afterthought on the restaurant menus. After watching the umpteenth sunburned bikini-clad English girl walk by, I realised that 1.5 days here was going to be more than enough, as a cheap package deal to Ibiza could have given me the same views. Having said that, the Mediterranean feel to the place moved me to retrieve my shorts from the bottom of my rucksack where they'd been slumbering for the last 3 months and, to my legs' surprise, put them on. I'd bought the shorts when I was at my porkiest in New York, but they're now much too big for my slimline waist. I present something of an odd sight anyway with my fairly tanned face and arms
Varkala Beach
Or Sin Destroyer, in Malayalam above, and pasty chicken legs below.
Virtually all of the restaurants have arranged their seating to face out to sea, and so I was able to have dinner while watching the lights of numerous fishing boats inching across the darkness of the ocean. I had an excellent local dish of barracuda cooked in ginger, garlic and assorted other spices, all served in a banana leaf parcel and washed down with a beer. Due to some arcane licensing laws, you're requested to keep your beer bottle on the ground so that it's not obvious that you are drinking alcohol - in some of the places, I think they even serve the beer in teapots. I must have spent more than 2 hours over this dinner, but that was partly because my waiter proved impossible to get hold of, even though the place wasn't exactly crowded.
I suspect tomorrow is going to be a lazy day.
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