The beach

Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum)

Cooking fish masala with Ami

We caught the train from Madurai to Trivandrum (we will only write its real name once (above), we wont even try to say it!), and spent a day before moving onto Varkala. It is a fairly average city but it has a excellent art gallery and decent museum, as well as the usual temple and old palace, all of which were worth a look.

Varkala

Varkala is a small piece of paradise away from the smells and smog of the rest of India with a white sand beach backed by red cliffs. We have spent the last few days sitting at the clifftop restuarants watching the sunset and the schools of fish swim by, which are occasionally chased down and netted by the local fisherman or plucked by the many resident raptors. The sea is pretty rough but it provides a welcome relief from the scorching sun. We hired a boogy board to ride the big breaker at the back of the beach and have stretched out with some beachside yoga but otherwise we haven't moved our muscles too much!. Today we took a short walk from the main beach area further north where there are a number of fishing villages. Michael helped haul in the nets at one village to reveal a catch of thousands of mainly small fish of numerous varieties. We have dined on delicious Keralan style seafood every night and also tried to master Indian cooking with a cooking class. Hopefully we will be able to re-create some of the tasty dishes when we get home.

Enjoying a fantastic Thali, Madurai

Photos of our hard lifestyle will be posted at a later date :-)

The master chefs and their massive feast!

Varkala beach