Kerala: Varkala

It's amazing how people, who you by some small chance cross paths with, but at any other given moment would never have met, become a part of your world. Had Rahul not seen Tovah and I walk past or chosen not to stop us we would have never met him, his cousin Alex, their brother/cousin Raj, and Iris (Raj's girlfriend). Fortunately Rahul did decide to stop us, asking us why we thought it was that many tourists did not give him the time of day and often dismissed him rudely when trying to start up innocent conversation. And fortunately we did decide to stop and offer our opinions. We ended up standing there chatting with him for a while and meeting Alex, his cousin, who came by. Rahul, Alex, and Raj are from Mumbai and their family has jewelry stores all around India, Europe, Thailand.. That is why they were in Varkala looking after their shop. Our conversation led to dinner at the restaurant next door, which led to hours of laughing (Alex knows endless jokes, and despite English not being his first language, Hindi is, is impressively witty and sarcastic in English), which led to them inviting us to stay at their house... While it was an extremely generous and tempting offer, we decided not to stay at their place although from that night until we left Varkala, we hung out with them every day.

The reason we chose to forego our offer of accommodation was because we loved our set up of being just steps from the beach and the other various activities offered there. Varkala beach is set up so that nothing is built on the beach like it was with Goa having the bungalows/restaurants, etc. right on it. Aside from a volleyball net, and your morning and evening cricket matches and yoga circles, there is nothing but sand and umbrellas for those who got too much sun. It is a lovely and vast beach with beautiful water (not to mention perfect temperature) with the most powerful waves that everyday people fill the water to body surf. From the beach there are a few different stairways leading up to the cliff where many restaurants, shops, and hotels are (including ours).

We were happy to meet back up with Anna, Gav, and Tim (the Australians from Mumbai and Goa) on our 2nd day there. Our days consisted of any combination of yoga (Tovah and I found the morning class to be easier than the afternoon class), laying on the beach, surfing the waves or just playing in them, shopping and bargaining, ayurvedic massages, day time excursions with Rahul and Alex to places we would never have seen had we not been with people who know the area (such as having tea by a beautiful, but well hidden, lake). Just a note about ayurvedic massages. You cannot be modest if you decide to have one since you are instructed to take off all your clothes and the massage includes areas on your body that a typical massage would not dare to go. Nothing perverted as it is a therapeutic/healing and professional massage, just different.  We met some travelers that were unaware of this and a bit wierded out by it.

Our evenings always consisted of spending time with the Indians/German (Iris) and the Australians (grouping our friends by country is only to avoid having to continuously type all their names). One night we were all invited to the guy's house for dinner. Unbeknownst to us, we were meant to help make it. They had the girls peel and chop..though Gav later helped and chopped the green chilies. Alex, who was on a beer run with Tim, left Rahul in charge. Later we learned that 2 green chilies would suffice, but Rahul had Gav chop around 30!! Rahul, Alex, and Raj took over making the curry once the ingredients were all prepared. Until dinner was ready we all sat outside playing card games, listening to Gav and Tim play guitar, and asking and learning more about each others countries and cultures. Dinner was excellent and one of the spiciest dishes I have ever had which made it all the better. Before we knew it it was 2:30 am and so we decided to call it a night while making plans for the following night.

The other nights included drinks at sunset, dinner on the cliff, and games of pool. Once the bar with pool closed we would go to another hotel that was still open so we could continue hanging out. One night when everything had closed, Anna and I went back to the boy's place and taught them how to play Texas Hold Em' using anything we could find to bet with (leafs, garbage, a garlic peel from the night we made dinner there, shoes, mobile phones, toothpicks, etc..). Another side note, Alex told us that Indian men tend to get drunk easily and then start fights. We witnessed this first hand on our last night in Varkala as Alex was approached by three guys who seemed to be starting trouble, although we couldn't understand what they were saying. Alex appeared to be calm and trying to avoid any confrontation. The next day he told us that the guys saw five girls sitting at a table with three guys and thus concluded that there were two "spare" girls (that was the word they used) and therefore they should get the two "spares". Alex tried to make a joke of it by first telling them that we were all friends and that no one belonged to anyone else. He too was shocked and tried to reason with the guys making them see that their request was like equating the 'spare girls' with left over vegetables...like having a 'spare tomato'. But, no such luck. So we left to avoid any unwanted and definitely unwarranted trouble.

It was really hard to leave Varkala. Aside from the relaxing and rejuvenating aspects, we were saying goodbye to Tim and Gav for the last time as they were flying back to Australia. It was so nice catching up with them throughout our travels south and we are going to miss them! It was also hard to say bye to Rahul, Alex, Raj, and Iris who we spent so much time with and who were so generous and kind. They plan to be in the Rajasthan looking after a store there around the time we plan to be there, and so we hope to meet up with them then. Regardless, Rahul and Alex will working in Thailand when we're there so at least we know we are guaranteed to see them again. Luckily Anna, whose friend Charlie is meeting up with her when Tim and Gav leave, has decided to go to travel to Delhi first so that we can continue our travels in India with her!!

Our train taking us from the very south of India (Thrivanpuram) to the north (Delhi) was 42 hours, and we were VERY lucky to have made it. We had to take an hour taxi ride to the station and about 15-20 minutes in, I remembered that Tovah and I left laundry we had done that morning drying on the line. So we turned around to go back and get it and just made the train by 4 minutes. Literally the second we put our bags down the train began to pull away. This journey turned out to be surprisingly nice and enjoyable. It was very clean as it was an express train with every class compartment having AC. In addition we got clean linens, pillow, and towel, and they fed us, it seemed, every three hours. We also had an option of vege or non-vege for every meal and there was not the usual stream of vendors yelling out repeatedly throughout the night what they were selling. This pleasant experience left us rested and ready for our arrival in Delhi.