Varkala

I had a pretty long day to get to India. First after arriving early at Beirut to sort out overstaying my visa, I had a three hour wait until my flight left to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Then another six hour wait before taking another flight to Trivandrum right in the south of India. All in all it was a 18 hour journey from leaving my hostel in Beirut to arriving in India. And what was more I arrived at 4:30 am in the morning. After getting my bags and clearing customs I bought a prepaid taxi to take me to Varkala. The taxi was a set price of 1060 rupees. I paid 1100Rs and waited for 40Rs change. The guy on the stall prevaricated in giving my change saying my taxi driver would give me the change. He then tried to give me 5 Saudi dinars as my change which I thought was quite interesting. Finally after being firm and waiting he coughed up the change smiling all the time and shaking his head from side to side. I suppose this thought of thing is to be expected in India.

The taxi ride from the airport to Varkala was very enjoyable. Everything here is so different from the Middle East. For a start it was hot and humid. There were palm trees lining the roads. Lots of people were out and about on the streets wearing strange clothes. Who knows what they were up to at 5am - it was still dark. I got dropped at Varkala just as the sun was rising. Varkala is on the coast and situated on a cliff top overlooking a beautiful beach. Before looking for some accommodation I sat on the cliff tops and watched the sunrise and saw Varkala come to life. Even this early people were out and about. There were locals and westerners exercising on the beach and doing yoga. A bunch of kids were playing cricket. Cricket is the national sport here and the Indians are mad for it. Despite the long journey to get here it was a really refreshing, pleasant way to arrive in Varkala.

And so I went off in search of accommodation. My preferred option recommended in the lonely planet (aka the bible, aka the book) was full, but they directed me onto a place called Africa house. I went in and disturbed one of the owners. He was a was a West African guy and was having a nice lie down and happily getting stoned on a rather strong smelling joint until I disturbed him. I got myself a pretty decent large sized room and then I was so exhausted I slept for most of the day. In the evening there was a roof top African bongo party going on on the roof of my hostel. The West African guy from earlier was playing with a few other people. They finished up pretty early mainly because Kent (the West African guy) got too stoned to carry on.

I had to hang around here in Varkala for a few days and wait for Phil to join me from Israel and as it turns out Varkala is a great place to just hang out and do very little, which is exactly what I did. I spent the days lying on the beach or walking along the cliff tops or eating fantastic fresh seafood in one the many restaurants here. I also got a healthiness kick going on and started running along the beach.

The hostel I was staying was a bit quiet so I checked into another hotel closer to the beach with a nice hammock hanging outside the room. I enjoyed lazing in the hammock for the first few days, but then noticed there were a load of coconuts in the palm tree the hammock was tied to that were directly above my head when I laid in the hammock. I got worried that a coconut would fall off and smash my skull in. From then on I was only able to enjoy lying in the hammock after I had a sufficient number of Kingfishers (the local beer) to allay my coconut fears.

A few days later Phil arrived, although nothing much really changed to my daily routine of lazing on the beach, going for the occasional run and having a few Kingfishers and great seafood in the evening. The nightlife in Varkala is fairly quiet. There aren't really that many bars. You tend instead to just have a few beers in one the restaurants, although officially the restaurants here don't have licenses to sell alcohol so you get your beer in a mug and have to surreptitiously hide the bottle under the table. We did find one quite cool place to drink in though called 'The Chill Out Lounge' which was very handily a twenty second drunken stumble from our hotel. The guys who worked were seriously chilled out. They were so stoned most of the time they had no idea how many drinks we had ordered and so how much to charge us. It's a good thing myself and Phil are honest upstanding citizens and always paid our bills in full.

The currents in Varkala are very strong and it can sometimes be a tad dangerous to go out in the see. Lifeguards patrol the beach, and on days when the current is strong, they stand on the beach busily blowing their whistles and waving their red flags at anyone venturing too far out to sea. We never saw a lifeguard actually in the sea and did wander if they could actually swim or if ownership of a whistle and a red flag were the sole requisites to become a lifeguard in Varkala. We were assured by a long-timer that actually the lifeguards are very proficient swimmers and have rescued a number of people from the strong currents in the past. Despite the very strong waves and currents we did spend a fair bit of time messing about in the big waves and getting thrown around. One evening after a few too many beers we decided to go for a night swim - in retrospect probably not the best idea. It was however pretty amazing. There are phosphorescent algae in the sea here which light up whenever you move in the sea. Was a really great experience to swim through them with every arm and leg movement lighting up the algae. Had lots of fun until a big wave picked me up and dumped me head-first into the sand. I was sporting a very fetching graze on my forehead the following morning.

One afternoon whilst sitting in a restaurant overlooking the beach we heard a load of drums being played and a couple of elephants walking down the beach. I went down to investigate. Turns out an English couple were getting married on the beach. Quite an unexpected occurrence but was a pretty cool romantic thing to do.

Whilst in Varkala we also attended a cooking course and learnt to cook hot and sour soup, fish masala, vegetable biriani, another curry the name of which I forget and some Indian bread as well. It was good fun and all seemed pretty easy to make. Looking forward to getting home and trying some of the recipes out.

Lots of people in Varkala are doing yoga courses and it seems a lot of people come here for a spiritual experience. I was also hoping to have a few yoga lessons myself. They did lessons on the roof top of the hotel we were staying in. Unfortunately the lessons were at 7:30am and I never quite made it to one. Yoga, it would seem, is an activity for early risers.

Sadly it wasn't all fun and games in Varkala. Phil had his bag stolen when he was in an internet cafe. I was pretty surprised by that. In terms of petty theft the Middle East is a very safe place to travel around and we've probably both gotten a bit slack at keeping an eye on our personal possessions. I guess it's not so safe here in India. The surprising thing was Phil is sure it was another traveler who took the bag not a local. That's a pretty shitty thing to do someone, just to extend your own stay for another week or two.

That little incident must have got me paranoid about being robbed. The next day I couldn't find my camera anywhere. I turned the hotel room upside down looking for it, then went to a couple of internet cafes I'd visited that day to see if I'd left it there but could find it nowhere. I couldn't believe my camera had gone as well. I went to the room and told Phil my camera had gone: it took him about two seconds to find it in the first place he looked - under the sheet on my bed - doh!

All in all I spent a good 10 days or so doing very little in Varkala. Finally we decided we really ought to leave although neither of us were all that keen to do so. Nevertheless we booked ourselves on a boat trip to visit the Kerala backwaters.

You may have noticed if you've been looking at my photos that I've decided to give shaving a miss while in India and am currently cultivating a beard. I think every man should grow a beard at least once in his life and India seems like a good place to do it. I've had a couple of positive responses so far so I guess maybe it doesn't look that bad. Who knows, I may even stick with it.