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Varkala
Entry 18 of 200 | show all | print this entry |
Day 15 - Varkala
By noon I was a much happier man having just had my first hot shower of the trip. We moved hotels to somewhere more expensive but Varkala is already looking a nicer place!
By ten past noon my opinion progressed - Varkala is looking a much nicer place - I had just discovered our hotel room has toilet paper which makes it a very special hotel in India!
Day 16 - Varkala
While there's not a great deal to do here, we're more than happy not to do a lot for a while. Varkala is a perfect place to relax for a while and though I don't feel I could stay here indefinitely (like some people do) a week or so is going to be easy enough. The people (read other Westerners) are a mixed bag though. There are some that look down on you for not being 'spiritual' enough and there are some that complain that it's not the hideaway place they were hoping for. Kirsty and I don't really fit into either category so we haven't really met anyone we've clicked with so to speak (plenty of time for that). The locals however have been very friendly and while a lot of them top up their income by selling drugs, at least they try and do it in amusing and innovative ways!
The thing which I'm most looking forward to doing during the rest of our stay in India is watching some of the cricket world cup with the locals - predictably they are going crazy about it! I picked up a paper earlier, which had four pages of sports coverage - three and a half were about the cricket leaving the remaining half to cover tennis, badminton, hockey, chess and bridge. Despite the obsession no one is predicting an Indian victory but all are expecting progression beyond that of England - despite how highly they rate Mi-kel Vor-gan! All the Indians also have their favourite player (not often Tendulkar) who is usually someone who originally came from the same village or town as them - sadly I never felt the same affection towards Peter Such or Derek Pringle!
Days 17 - 19 - Varkala
The World Cup has started and I'm being allowed to watch what I want with the hotel staff - they keep giving up their seats for me which is a bit embarrassing! They do however, keep talking amongst themselves, then looking at me and then laughing - hopefully this is related to English cricket rather than me personally! On of them, immediately after finding out my nationality, asked who I wanted to win the WC. When I replied 'England' I think I inadvertently cracked one of the top 10 jokes of all time!
The service in restaurants in Kerala has also been the source of amusement. While the friendliness of the staff is superb, I can imagine a lot of people getting annoyed by the timescales they work to. The other night when we had pizza and chips again (we are eating local dishes virtually all the time - I swear), our starters arrived after about 30 minutes. About another 20 minutes later our chips were brought out as what can only be described as a sorbet course! Kirsty's pizza arrived 15 minutes after the chips and mine, just after Kirsty had finished eating.
Varkala has been a great place for us since we moved hotels but at the end of the week we're going to move further up the coast towards Mumbai. We've decided to spend a little less time in India than originally planned. This is not because we haven't enjoyed India but for one simple reason and one complicated reason. The simple one is that one of Kirsty's friends is going to be in Thailand for a couple of weeks so we're going to try and meet up with him. The complicated reason is that I think when we made our plans for India, we were a bit lazy. We didn't plan to see too much, thinking we would spend about 4 weeks in Kerala. In reality this has turned out to be too long in one place and rather than turn our plans on their heads, it's easiest to leave a bit earlier. This hasn't been an easy decision to make but it will help us later in our travels in terms of meeting up with other people as well. I also haven't acclimatised to the heat and the thought of travelling round sights in 35 degrees is not appealing - at least in the north it was cooler!
Although we're not about to leave (we've still got another couple of weeks) I feel I'm in more of a position now to make comments about the country as a whole (or certainly what we've seen of it). While it certainly will not appeal to everyone it has been very enjoyable for us. The main enjoyment for me has not been in the amazing buildings, the difference in culture or the weather/beaches but in the people. As I said earlier, it would be easy to get ripped off (and we have been at times - it now appears that the friendly Naveen actually stole a camera and a Minidisc player) but generally the people are so amiable, so interesting and so talkative that conversations and brief friendships develop all the time - I'm beginning to worry that comments like that make me sound as though I'm turning into one of the people I dislike!
Latest Comments (1)
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RE: Varkala, India (reply)
Jul 7, 2005 08:20 EST by ashish
Kandg,
quite interesting blog. I didnt feel it right when you say ..'-it now appears that the friendly Naveen actually stole a camera and a Minidisc player)'.. seems you had prejudice.. highly unlikely that a defence personnel can do it.. anyway did you enquire Railway office?
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