The Varkala Stranglehold (7th - 11th Dec 07)

Varkala is a small town right down on the southern tip of India. We heard that it had beautiful beaches and was a nice chilled out town, so we planned to stay for a couple of nights. But upon getting there, we couldnt quite get ourselves to leave after such a short time. So we ended up there for 5 nights.

The stunning cliff at Varkala


It has quite a travellers atmosphere, which means that all the restaurants are twice the price, but they were still nice to hang out in looking over the sea. The town is set up on a cliff, with all the shops, hotels and restaurants high up on the cliff, with the beach below. This was nice as it gave the beach a secluded feel to it, with out all the shoppers gawking at you.

There was a social atmosphere at the place we were staying and met other interesting like-minded people. One women in particular, Tahlia, we bumped into while we were in three different Indian towns, and we hopefully talked into joining us for Christmas in the north of India. After hearing that we cut each other's hair, she bravely let us near her with a pair of scissors, and she went from a long brunette to a short cut. So we are thinking of earning some money on the side, by opening up a travellers hair dresser.

One of the pleasures of staying here was walking along the cliff top road, eyeing up the fresh seafood on offer at the restaurants, and negotiating prices. We had fresh fish a few nights in a row, and it was absolutely fantastic. On offer was small snapper, but also large marlins and smaller sharks, and the most gigantic tiger prawns we have ever seen.

Other than the beach and cafes, we spend one afternoon doing a private cooking course. This was a great way to see how Indian curries are made from scratch, and also making an Indian flat-bread Chapati.

Nick making Chapati


We also caught a traditional dance while we were there, known as Kathakali. This was apparently started around the time of Shakespere, and uses elaborate costumes and make up to play out stories from the Hindu ramayana. The actors were men, and train for years to master the facial expressions which dictate the story. They are accompanied by live music, and singing. The plot brief provided to us before the show was a god-send in order to understand what was going on.

Kathakali costumes


But then after about 5 days here, we started to get cravings for authentic India, with cheap, good food and the chaos (although chilling at the beach was a nice break). So we headed out from the comfort zone to further north along the Keralan coast.