We took the train at Kanyakumari, at the end of the railway line. It was a short train journey in "first class" made even better by a lovely local woman who fed us delicious homemade sweets (a mix of ghee, milk, coconut and sugar YUMMY!)
We arrived in the chilled out ‘ayudervic beach resort of Varkala. Two or three days of chilling out in a bamboo hut by the beach J. In this hotel there are plenty of things to do, yoga, ayudervic massage, Indian cooking lessons etc. The first evening we arrived we ran (almost) to the nearest cocktail bar to quench our thirst with a fruity sex on the beach followed by a Mr Sree J. After dinner, we walked along the cliff top looking out to sea, we saw hundreds of lights in the middle of the ocean. At first we thought it must be a town on an island but then we realised there was no island there, and it must be fishing boats.
Our first day we had a two hour cooking class learning to make, onion pakora, parotta, veg masala, fish malabari and veg byriani. The chief was really nice, he showed us plenty of India cook technique, after we were eating this great meal in the shadow of a coconut palm. The Indian meal plus the sun made it a very hot lunch. after while we had to chill out for a couple of hour just before the yoga class, Marc’s 1st yoga class. After the yoga class, the yoga guru told us it was an auspicious day for Marc to start learning yoga since it was Shiva’s day and a shiva festival was being held in the temple and around the "town". The next day was also exhausting with a little promenade along the coast past some fishing villages (where not everyone was friendly...) and to recover we both had a 90 min ayudervic massage back at the hotel. It was an interesting experience to be stripped, oiled and pounded.after our massage we were branded with a sandalwood tikka (for good gods).
The next day we went for an early morning swim to wake up before a breakfast of jam croissant and lemon cake before leaving Varkala in style by taxi :)
Varkala is beautiful spot but a bit strange because the tourist resort is separate from the town. The tourists are parked next to the beach well away from the cultural center of town. Despite being a tourist town, in true indian style the place is not entirely functional with regular power cuts and we ended up taking our torch to dinner in order to be able to read the menu and see what we were eating. The other problem is, a power cut affects what cocktails you can order...mojhito or rhum and coke only hehehe!
