Staying comfortable

We stayed comfortable on our South India sojourn by staying in comfortable homestays or in rather nice 3 and 4 star hotels and resorts. The price was typically $25 to $30 per night for the former, and $60 to $80 for the latter, and if it hadn't been peak season, even better rates would have applied. Of course you can get by on far less if you stick to budget hotels. (And we were caught out by one budget hotel masquerading as a 3 star one, in the beach resort of Varkala. It wasn't quite the paradise it claimed to be.)

Kerala beach resorts - Varkala

The beach resort of Varkala was a cut above Kovalam, we thought. It seemed a little bit cleaner, brighter, more wholesome all round. More relaxing places to hang out, and a rather dramatic setting, with much of it strung out along a clifftop walk.

There's still a bit of dirt and litter around though, but the cliff provides a convenient way to dispose of it. Sweep it all over the edge! And the traders in the tin shed trinket shops along the cliff top walk were right up there in the world champion perseverance stakes. They were also rather personable and quite seductive though, and yours truly found himself buying T shirts, tailored trousers, miniature auto-rickshaws, the lot.

Lonely Planet says Varkala's the kind of place where the days turn into weeks, or even months. You stroll the tourist strip, you do excursions to the nearby backwaters, you wander north along the path to the next beaches, where it's all much quieter and even more scenic. I can see how it happens.

There again you could join the throng down on the main beach, where the blue-clad lifesavers blow their whistles almost non-stop, to no avail and for unknown purpose.

Churches, mosques, and temples of South India - Mosques

About 24% of Keralans are muslims. Here are the mosques in Vizhinjam (just south of Kovalam Beach) and Odayam (just north of Varkala).

Kerala trains and buses

Train or bus? If there's a choice, you usually go for the train. They cost very little, they're faster than buses, they're moderately predictable, and sometimes on time, and if you book in advance and go for the most expensive class available, they can offer a fair degree of comfort. It's also essential for every traveller to experience train travel - so important is it to India's life and soul. We travelled AC Chair class from Calicut to Ernakulam, and 2AC sleeper class from Varkala to Kottayam.

For the Ernakulam to Trivandrum leg of the trip the trains were all booked out. So we took a bus. We were advised to go for the air conditioned Volvo service, and after a fair bit of confusion and faulty advice from the bus staff, we did manage to secure the last two seats on it. (This was just before Christmas, and a peak travelling season). The first of the buses pictured here is air conditioned in the traditional Indian way, by virtue of its unglazed windows, but the lower one is the genuine article.

It was in fact a comfortable bus, physically speaking. The main drawback was the horror movie being shown. It was called 'View out of the front window', and it featured dozens of close calls with grizzly death scenes - our own. Of all the homicidal/suicidal road user maniac subclasses, the bus driver subclass is the scariest. We charged down the middle of the two-lane road, sending all other traffic scattering in every direction, sometimes right off the road. Occasionally our game of chicken failed us, and we would  screech suddenly to a halt. Even one of  the local Hindu pilgrims on board couldn't take any more, and started loudly chastising the driver at one point.

We were very relieved to arrive in one piece in Trivandrum. But I can't help wondering about the perceived safety of our train rides. Could it be that on a train you just can't see out the front? Maybe if you could, it would be just as scary as a bus ride?!!

Pop go the licensing laws!

India has a complex array of liquor licensing laws. This partly reflects the diverse array of religious and political divisions around the place. So there are some hardline no-drug, no-alcohol philosophies, combined with the rather free-and-easy 'anything goes' attitude that actually makes everything work and everyone get on with each other (sort of).

In the state of Kerala recently, the rules have been changing almost from week to week. There's been a strong appetite among many local legislators for going down the prohibition road. They claim to have a particularly virulent problem with alcoholism, and judging by the scenes I witnessed when I passed by a couple of their licensed bottle shops, there must be something unusual going on. They were horrendous looking black holes, but with massive queues out along the pavement. Rather uninviting!

I'd had an indirect dealing with a Kerala bottle shop a few days earlier in Cochin. We'd arrived at our 4-star hotel after a long and thirsty day of travel. They had a rooftop restaurant and I was rather looking forward to a beer with my meal. No chance. You can't have alcohol with your meal, we were told. I was advised to wait in my room and all would be fixed. A good old standard Indian Kingfisher beer would be fine, I said. They couldn't quite guarantee that. They'd do what they could. Hungry and thirsty, I waited in the room, and after what seemed like an hour the stuff arrived. It was heavily camouflaged in brown paper packaging. It was warm. I was told I'd have to drink it in the room. Worst of all, it was Budweiser! And not the usual bland, sweet, weak, American Budweiser, but a special 8% proof one! Unheard of, and of course barely drinkable. It seemed the hotel had no liquor license, the chap had had to run to one of those dingy neighbourhood bottle shops, and the choice had been very limited!



In the beach resorts of Kovalam and Varkala, we found it all worked a bit better. It was quite clear that none of the restaurants or hotels had licences. They got around this by serving their beer in opaque pitchers, and encouraging you to keep the bottle on the floor, out of sight.



And the description of the beverage on the bill, in case of any audit by the licensing authorities? It was always either 'pop' or 'pop juice'!

Colourful women of Kerala 2

The Kerala part of our trip took in the Wayanad region, Cochin (Kochi), Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram - 7 syllables in the local name!), Kovalam and Varkala beaches, and the 'backwaters' of Kollam, Poovar, and Kumarakom.