A few hours down the coast from Kochi, I have been staying in Varkala for a week.
The guide book made it sound laid back, not so touristy, a couple of yoga schools, a couple of Ayurvedic schools, nice little spot on a cliff set back from the town with thousands of years of Hindu history, but when I arrived I felt a bit culture shocked! What’s this? People walking around in bikinis and overweight men in speedos!!
This place is very pretty, but 100% tourist destination. I stayed at a small apartment with balcony looking out onto a square where I could say hello to the locals and do a bit of people watching. Varkala Cliff has a promenade which is full of Tibetan shops and seafood restaurants and from there you can access the beach from steep steps carved into the rock face.
Don’t mention the Ayurvedic theme park...
I think the most interesting thing for me was the endless fishing - the boats were constantly out and when it was calm, there were literally hundreds of boats out on the ocean at night, it was lit up like the sky above. The nets get hauled in by large groups on the beach around 9am with lots of chanting. I tried to hear what they were saying but it just sounded like bor-ring, bor-ring. Maybe that was what they were saying?
Every single restaurant has the daily catch out front , by the end of seven days I felt really quite sad seeing those beautiful great marlin on show at every turn. I thought I’d try calamari the second night and had two bites and but it tasted like poison and was immediately followed by my first ‘delhi-belly’ experience that lasted days followed by a rash from my wrist to elbow so I spent the last few days on the balcony reading Paulo Cohelo books.
I don’t think Kerala’s my thing. I am off back up north to Uttaranchal where men hunt cauliflower and I can search out tigers, elephants and a bit of yoga school.
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