varkala beach is a cliff side resort town which i reckon exists only for foreign tourists. it's actually set along a beautiful red cliff with a lovely sandy beach and a very rough undertow below. i arrived and checked myself into a beautiful room and wandered along the cliff, looking for a place for lunch. the quality of the restaurants, the shops, the beach and the number of indians who spoke perfect english made me wonder at times if i was even in india anymore!! varkala was very clearly trying to rival goa as a home away from home resort town.
i returned back to the hotel, put on my bathers and headed down to the beach for a dip and some sun. truly, there wasn't much to do in varkala except eat, swim/sunbathe, have spa treatments/massages and shop so that's what i ended up doing ;-)
i booked myself an ayurvedic massage (popular in kerala) which centers around healing by pouring a load of oil onto the body; where they pour it depends upon what they're attempting to accomplish. i booked a general massage and a facial for the equivalent of $20CDN. the room was fairly sparse in nature with a vinyl covered massage bed and a plastic chair. the masseuse had me fully disrobe in front of her and then she attached what can be best described as a loin cloth (i tried to do it myself however she wouldn't let me :-). from there, i was told to sit on a stool for the head and upper body massage where i had three cupfuls of oil poured on me then onto the table for the full body (and i mean full body) where i was soaked further in oil!! she then applied my facial mask and i lay there in a puddle of oil for nearly 30mins until i could stand it no longer and asked that we finish early. i got washed (yes, again i was not allowed to do this myself) and then she assisted me in getting dressed. a very different experience all up and i must confess that i wasn't overly impressed with the massage techniques applied; i'm not convinced i'd do it again however it definitely had to be tried!! i had another swim, showered and finally felt that i'd removed most of the oil before i headed off for dinner where i was served a beer in a teapot as the local restaurateur didn't have a liquor license :-)
i rose early and caught my 6:30am train into cochin where i randomly ran into amg at the ferry dock. we agreed to meet at 5pm for a kathakali show on the cochin side of the bay. i settled into a hotel, had a tour of cochin, got suckered into doing some unwanted shopping (the rickshaw driver told me he got free petrol if he took tourists into a couple of shops so i agreed to assist him) and then met up with her for the show.
this version of the show was slightly easier to understand (there were two different characters so the story was easier to follow) however i still wasn't enamored with the form of theatre/dance that they use to depict the stories. we had dinner together and agreed to meet in the morning to take some sunrise photos of the chinese fishing nets.
we had a crap sunrise (again) however i did get a couple of shots and then we headed off to the airport in a taxi together. our driver was horrible to say the least!! in fact, he was the worst i've had since landing in india!! he was slow, drove in the fast lane, drifted all of the place and couldn't keep a consistent speed for more than 5m... i was happy as hell when we arrived at the airport in one piece!!
we landed in mumbai and caught a pre-paid taxi to colaba which is where we'd stayed previously. the driver kept inquiring if we wanted to take the "ceiling" for 50 additional rupees however since we didn't have a clue what the "ceiling" was (my only guess was an express way), we declined. i checked into a locker sized room (literally) and we went off to find ourselves some lunch.
our afternoon/evening unfolded as follows: lunch, walk to cinema to buy tickets, internet, walk back to leopold's for a bon voyage beer, to the hotel so amg could pack up the presents i'd purchased and then she was off to the airport.
i was due to leave this morning however thai airways sent an email (which luckily i read) saying there were "technical issues" with my flight so they rescheduled me for this evening instead. i was a bit worried about my connection from bangkok to melbourne as they'd not indicated that had been rescheduled however it's all been sorted and i simply arrive in melbourne 9 hours later than planned (no time for laundry or anything before bed). i can't believe that 4wks have come and gone already!! i must confess that i don't feel like i've finished india; another 4wks would probably be needed to finish everything!!
hugs,
s
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