Day 95 - Varkala, India

Day 95 – His.

 

 Ah Varkala, Jewel of the West Indian seaboard. What can one say about this place? It is a seaside resort. But unfortunately the kind of resort you find in the holiday brochures of every travel agent in the world. Particularly in Russia if the clientele of our hotel is anything to go by. If you like getting drunk until four in the morning, sleeping on the beach until it’s time for dinner, eating and then going back out on the drink then the place is perfect. If that is not your kind of thing then there is very little to do.

Patti and I went for a three hour walk along the beach, peering under rocks and into mosques and temples. Patti told me that the water was quite warm so I agreed to join her to splash around a bit.  It was amazingly warm but the undertow was horrific, so we continued on.  We took note of the odd construction of the fishing boats and watched the local fishermen untangle their nets over a lime soda and sweated our way along tiny backstreets and palm shaded walkways where no tourist goes. We knew this because the locals were actually quite friendly and just wanted to chat instead of asking where we were from as a prelude to trying to sell us something.

We saw the hospital, helipad, shores and bays, two mosques, a Hindu temple, old fishing villages, new hotels under construction and a taxi driver that held my hand for half an hour as he chatted about motor design. We got back to the hotel hot, sweaty and dusty and went to the swimming pool where we met some of the rest of our group who were just getting up – they were the kind who loved getting drunk until four – one of the girls – a Brit, i hate to say, even met a Scots guy in the pub and went with him for a midnight tryst on the beach. Well, that’s being poetic – it was more like four in the morning and apparently she threw up over him – the rumour mill is wonderful in these kinds of environments. Still, only four more days of this group and i will miss half of them – the other half, not so much.

It is mildly surprising how doing not very much can eat away your day. After our breakfast, walk, swim and short read it was time to get together with the group to find out what we are doing tomorrow – it seems we are to get up at half five in the morning to take the train to our next destination so dinner to a sunset over the Arabian sea and an early bed seems called for.