Celebrating NYE on the beach under palm trees with a cocktail in hand!

enjoyin sun and sand at Varkala
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Very much in contrast to the larger towns in the rest of India, Varkala is a largely uncommercialised beach town with easy goin locals who are not hell-bent on selling their wares to you whether your the least bit interested or not.

The coast is largely coconut groves on small cliffs with little secluded beaches in between that have black sand and large pounding waves that are a laugh to swim in if the undertow doesn't get too strong. If you didn't pay attention at the waves caught you unaware you found your self hurled towards the shore like a small pebble bouncing off the beach shelf - very disorientating!

Around 7am the local fishermen began to come ashore towing their nets with them and we were soon beckoned over to help them pull their catch ashore!

our local indian mystic who was quite a character but a complete bullsh*ter
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We have been enjoying a makeshift course in Kerralan cookery. This was not as well organised and taught as my earlier Thai cookery course but nonetheless was an interesting opener to Indian cooking. The most striking thing being the amount of coconut that is in absolutely every meal be it desiccated or palm oil. Suffering a hangover and fatigue from heavy previous night i bailed early to recuperate for the NYE bash that evening.

Most bars were ill-informed of what westerns expect for their NYE celebrations and although a handful of DJs were on hand, bars equipped with 80W speakers blew on pretty much their opening song. Still we kept the night alive in the various clubs til 4am and in the end the lack of mixers at bars brought drinking to abrupt halt (Indian rum is very harsh neat and its how i got my hangover the night before).

most of the beer wasn't drunk instead mass beer fights kicked off in the bar...
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With the sun rising albeit on the other coast at around 6am the ladies (Sara and Isabelle) were flagging and headed for bed, meanwhile Mat and I got a fire on the go and settled down to a few more beers. Around 7am the local fishermen began to come ashore towing their nets with them and we were soon beckoned over to help them pull their catch ashore! Shattered and battered we diligently agreed to help and for the next hour we pulled our weight for the local cause. The catch was sizeable, though it consisted mainly of minnow-sized fish but the local fisherman were chanting wildly so we took it as a good sign they were content.

pickin up Dutch babes
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For our reward (though we suspect they wanted our beer in exchange) some of the fishermen brought us some of the freshly caught fish still flapping away and again we set about building a fire to cook on. We skewered the fish to a palm frond and turned them slowly over the flames for 15 minutes before hesitantly trying the fish – wary this would most likely mean a dodgy stomach for a few days. It was pretty tasty though I suspect you would need 4 or 5 to get your fill. In a special moment Mat dropped his on the sand and we decided the best way to clean it was to douse it in whisky...which invariably made it even more palatable!

the remnants of NYE just b4 the fishermen asked Mat and I to help them pull their nets in
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If that experience hadn’t been good enough an hour later we found a little restaurant and stopped for a cup of Chai looking down the coast. Here we saw a shoal of dolphins numbering at least 3 jumping from the water – an experience I’ve never had outside of the zoo and LA’s aquarium park with Shamu the Whale.