Varkala

On tuesday the very helpful Kurup at ashtamudi villas booked us into a lovely hotel in varkala. We got the bus after i spent an hour aimlessly running round the town in search of an atm that takes visa. It seems any bank with the word 'india' in its name doesnt accept it.

The bus wasnt too daft. It was busy, bumpy and sped along the narrow roads tooting its horn like a testoterone-high bull elephant rampaging through the jungle. It was a lot of fun and the fellow passengers came to our assistance when we quite clearly didnt know where to alight the bus. Varkala beach is an idyllic travellers spot. Brightly coloured, modern and cheap hotels and home stays, a myriad of restaurants dotting the cliff all serving the same multi national cuisine, a natural and untainted beach surrounded by cliffs and bathed in sunshine. This sort of place isnt why we came to india but i really enjoyed the relaxation and much needed beach time.

We stayed in a little villa on the signature residence campus. 600 rupees a night was a steal. Met some really nice people staying in the adjacent villas, two indian guys (kuldeep and vijay) both living in canada and vijay having a really strong canadian accent. He was a bit of a casanova and was doing sone serious spadework with barbara next door; a german lady who was also very kind and gave us some good info for our travels.

The food in varkala was good if tourist friendly. I never expected to see russian food on the menus, apparently the ruskies are taking over these parts. Hopefully theyll get more drunk than the brits to balance out the share of international stereotype. We had sone great seafood. Really great; marlin, baracuda and the crab was out if this world. The bars were great to catch the sunset each evening.

Our last night was spoilt however by an absolute abortion of a meal at a place called bohemian masala. A little retreat away from the main drag, all style no substance. It took an hour and a half for them to serve us a fish thali consisting of cold vegetable curries and a fish head in coconut curry. Juxtaposed to that we had a fantastic veg thali at a little caff on the front washed down with lemon soda, ginger and honey for niki and a coconut lassi for me.