Varkala was cool

Varkala is a small beach town on the South Western Cost of India, in the state of Kerala. It proved to be a great place to recover from the ISL of the past few days. We met up with a Swiss couple that was in Trivandrum at the same guest house, they were sick too!

The town is situated at the top of a sea-side cliff, with beautiful views every evening of the spectacular sun sets, something that we tend to forget about unless it is laid down in front of us. Being on the coast, naturally lent itself to walks on the beach. Is there anything quite like the feeling of sand beneath your feet? The food in Varkala was also great, we found a great Tibetan restaurant which had awesome fish momo’s (we found our selves going there almost everyday).

Many of the restaurants would display fish to lure in potential clients. But this doesn’t mean that they are fresh, as one couple pointed out that a calamari had been on display for 5 days. But for the most part you could tell the better restaurants had a lot of traffic and the fish displays would be empty by the end of the night. It did hurt to see the Blue Marlin’s on display, such a beautiful fish. But this was really the first place that we were non veg. on the trip. Being on the coast you have to enjoy the sea food.

We decided to brave the roads and rent a scooter, getting a wicked sunburn, and enjoying the Indian traffic. Wandering through the streets at your own pace is the best way to get a feel for the local ambiance. And it helps to keep cool, by simply hitting the gas, and feeling the power of the 20 HP zipping you to 40 Km/hr. OH YEAH!!!!!

There is a local in Varkala who has written a book on the Da Vinci Code, stating that he has discovered the REAL code, but after watching the video and listening to some of his theories it seems like a little too far fetched. We were suckered into buying the books – the ever popular conspiracy theories! We did manage to catch a few flicks at one of the cliff side restaurants – which begs the question; how good is a restaurant that needs to show two free movies a night??? Well I’ll tell you BBBBAAAAAADDDD. But the movies were alright, Da Vinci Code and Borat! Watching Borat on the cliff side, while in the midst of some yanks was quite memorable.

I had to try smoking a cigarette to get the bowels moving… It didn’t send me to the bathroom, but my head did spin quite a bit. Yeah I can see how people can get addicted to this. Here in India they sell “Bidis” that are all natural whole tobacco leaf cigarettes. I’ll bring some back for who ever wants to give them a try.