11/25/2006 Varkala, Kerala, India

We took the midnight train (a few days ago, not sure exactly which day ~ time is seeming inconsequential) from Coimbinatore, Tamil Nadu, to Varkala, Kerala. I awoke at daylight and peeked out the window to see marshy tropical countryside whizzing by, dotted by occasional thatched houses with women doing wash at wells, coconut palms, huge jackfruit and bananas hanging from trees, monkeys sitting on fences, and cows napping on the opposite tracks.

We arrived in Varkala at 8 a.m., and walked about three kilometers up the hill from town to the strip of backpacker hotels along a bluff overlooking the Arabian Sea. The temperature was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit and humid, especially steamy as we were carrying 40-pound backpacks. Our hotel is Clafouti House and we passed its restaurant along the way, along with hawkers for hotels and shop stalls, but Eric thought the sign was only directional and that we needed to go further. At a certain point along the bluff we dropped our packs and he scouted along the strip while I sat on a concrete fence overlooking the sea. About 10 feet away from me a Tibetan man with a short, thin goatee squatted on the fence, perched like a bird, facing Kunga Tibetan shop. He was the only shop owner not hawking his wares; he only jumped off the fence when someone went into his shop, then came back to his perch. Eric returned without finding the hotel; I insisted it was back the other direction and volunteered to go look. First I asked the Tibetan man but he didn't know where it was; another shop owner overheard and confirmed it was back the way we had come. So I went off, confirmed the location, and came back. We started putting on our backpacks; Eric usually helps me up with mine but before he could, the Tibetan man said, "here, let me help you," and helped me on with the pack.

We've been enjoying the clean sea air, the cool ocean, long walks, and generally just chilling out. The town is a typical Indian town with some tourists; this bluff is dedicated to backpacker-type travelers, with thatch-roofed restaurants with ocean views and pillow seating.

Our favorite restaurant is called The Funky Art Cafe, where the yellow dogs have just as much right as anyone to the underside of your table and the steps down to the pillowed chill space; where the music is always upbeat trance, the food is good, they make ice (to begin with) and the ice is made of bottled water. And they have a liquor license. Some of the restaurants here don't, but if asked they will surreptitiously hand you an index-card-sized drink menu and some time after you order, bring you a glass with a shot of warm gin, a bottle of warm tonic water, and some limes. So Funky Art Cafe is our restaurant of choice. Kerala Coffee (with tree house seating) is a favorite too.

So far I've had an ayurvedic massage complete with panchakarma and one yoga class. The massage was all about long strokes and lots of herbed? spiced? oil. Panchakarma involved warm oil streaming on my forehead for about 45 minutes; very relaxing. All that concluded with having the woman massage therapist soap me up and bathe me, with a lot of vigor and splashing. And I'm planning to take at least one more yoga class while we are here. The days have been super relaxing and surprisingly short.

There are no beggars here, but you can't get from one place to another without the hawkers practically pleading with you, asking you to promise to come back if you don't go into their shop. I've had a few things I've wanted to buy so got to know a couple of the shop owners. One is a small Indian woman named Sara, who used to be one of the girls selling sarongs on the beach. She hasn't been to school and is self-taught in English. Business hasn't been good and she is stressed because she (along with a lot of others) is paying on a business loan and the creditors can get pretty nasty. From her I bought a bag, sewn by her father (who was busy sewing bags as I shopped). I also went back to see the Tibetan guy. His name is Kunga (hence the shop name). He and his brothers came from Tibet in the early nineties. He too is self-taught and struggles a bit in English; in school in Tibet they were taught Tibetan and Chinese. He says that he would like to take his shop back to Tibet, especially now that his home town has lots of tourists. He doesn't hawk and when I told him how I hate to haggle prices, he immediately dropped the prices on what I bought since he marks it up for the usual hagglers. Interestingly, he is the one shop owner I talked to who said that business was good. From him I bought a silver bracelet with the Om Mane Padme Hum mantra inscribed in Tibetan script and a Tibetan protection symbol pendant.

I just finished reading a great book called The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad. Seems like it was made into a movie some time back. The author lived with an Afghan family for a month and then wrote the story as narrative; everything in it is true. The book does a good job paralleling the power shifts and struggles of the bookseller's Afghan/Muslim family with post Taliban-era Afghanistan government and warlords. Meanwhile Eric read Holy Cow by Sarah Macdonald, a love/hate story about one young woman's experiences with India and its multifaceted culture. Both books are compelling and had us up reading hours after we could have fallen asleep.

Another lovely surprise ~ As often happens when we travel, we met again in Varkala a couple we had met at our guest house in Ooty. They have just finished teaching English in Japan for two years, are vacationing in India, then heading home to Sydney, Australia. We are enjoying hanging out and swapping stories, and have exchanged info in case we are ever in each other's hometowns. (Hi Joel and Jess!)

Our travel plans have changed almost daily. For a while we were thinking of going up to McLeod Ganj for December, to be there for Losar (Tibetan New Year) and to hear the Dalai Lama speak. However, both the book Holy Cow and talking to Kunga have put us off of that. It turns out that some time ago there was an attempted attack on the Dalai Lama at such a gathering; so most travelers who come to hear him speak get shunted to another area to hear his talks over a tinny loudspeaker. Additionally, Eric had been having an increasingly bad feeling about going north of Mumbai; he had a knot in his stomach over it. In his words, it felt like we would be "going up that road" (in Ooty) ~ nothing wrong with the place itself but that it could be bad for us personally. Eric being sensitive to different energies and the last person to ever get wiggy about traveling, I wondered if perhaps we were drawing some energy to us that we would experience whether we went north or not, so I suggested we just plan on leaving from Mumbai to Bangkok, and see how that felt for him. A few hours later, he reported that the bad feeling, along with the knot in his stomach, had disappeared. So our plan now is to head for Alleppey in a few days and rent a houseboat to tour the Kerala backwaters for a couple of days, then head north to Goa, Ajanta, Elora, then Mumbai to Bangkok.