Golden Beach Resort Varkala

... my writer's block, I give in against my better judgment. Reiki session completed and onto the next massage; given by an overweight sweating man (how did I not see this coming?). He tells me to get naked to my panties and I do. He makes no movement to look away and while I thought maybe this was a bad idea, I felt it was too late to go back. I lie on the table and he proceeds.<br><br>Now I have heard that women travelers here should be wary of any treatments given ...

deutsch im Anschluss<br><br>Having spend 4 days in Varkala, I must say that it is really a nice place to chillout, eat and shop. The chillout part might only go for low season, which I had the luck to stay. I can imagine that in high season I would not like it that much, because it might be just like any of the european party islands in high season (Ibiza, Mykonos, etc.) <br><br>I can't say much about Varkala town as I really have spent all my time on the cliffs and after ...

... groups of young Indian boys (who can blame them?). Besides, the water here is treacherous with crashing surf and a dangerous rip tide - the life guards stationed along the beach furiously blow their whistles when a swimmer ventures out past their thighs. On the last day we did spend some time on the beach and quite enjoyed it - and didn't feel too out of place (alas, the Indian boys were more interested in Maddie than me :). The rest ...

... decorated structure that had been made for the event and was like a tall tower that looked like the top of a temple. The whole structure sat on a platform on logs that men were crowded around and carrying around the temple grounds, others were pulling it with ropes. The whole thing was an accident waiting to happen as the men, some of them drunk or Bhang effected were lugging the tower into the thick crowd. Many times it looked like it would topple and fall crushing ...

... We m*de pl*ns with Ann to visit Amm*, the Hugging Mother's *shr*m in * couple of d*ys so we could *ll feel the love *nd Chris *nd S*ndr* would be going in for their second hug. On one of the l*st nights Chris, N*di* *nd i went to the more expensive C*fe Del M*r where the food w*s f*nt*stic *nd the *mbience gre*t, th*t me*ns simple tunes, c*ndles *nd no flouro lights. My c*l*m*ri tikk* m*s*l* w*s delicious. This w*s * nice holid*y within our tr*vels. The rest*ur*nts on ...

... spice merchants that displayed the workings of one of the oldest spice markets in India. I have since some to the conclusion some of the writers of lonely planet spend too much time smoking charras and not paying attention to their writting because this Bazaar in fact did not exist. Either that or what did exist has severely diminished in the time since it was written about. No local had a clue where it was and when we finally got directions off the ...

... on one riksha driver (who turned out to be a "very famous man in Kerala" (said he :) because he had won some award for being very tourist friendly) stopped next to us and urged us to take the bus to the festival, about 15 km outside of town. In the end we agreed to go there with him, and ended up very happy with this decision. He took as with his autoriksha through some small villages until we already were in the parade itself, that was going to the festival place. In the parade ...

... Kerala's backwaters is a main attraction in this state. There are literally hundreds of kilometers of waterways that fringe the coast and make their way far inland. Many villagers today still use these waterways to get from A to B. This morning we spent a few hours in a fairly large open canoe, with 5 other travellers, boating in the backwaters around Kollam. The boat was being captained by a local who was ...

... be an issue...). I hadn't even brought decent clothes and realised I would have to aattend the wedding wearing jens, a polo-shirt and some dirty sneakers... Anyway, we arrived at the families mansion pretty late in the evening, but nonetheless everybody was very polite. The house was big and nice, and had a nice garden which faced the backwaters. There was even a small place for the family yacht to dock and pick up people for a cruise. The evening was ...

Onto Alleppey for what is apparently the travellers favouite thing to do in Kerela; a backwater boat trip to see the local life along a huge network of rivers. We found a boat with our two new travelling pals who we had met in Kannur, Hiten and Dermish. Unfortunately our planned double decker luxury boat had found it's way into some other travellers path so we settled for a still-rather-nice-but-less-bling single decker cruise machine and set of to see the sites. I ...