I traveled/coordinated with travel buddies Mathieu and Chloe as far as Kochi, but there our partnership dissolved – Chloe had to get to Chennai for her flight into Sri Lanka (thus ending her time in India as a portion of an around-the-world-ticket) and Mathieu was headed the same direction, next destination unknown. I wanted more time in Kerala.
But again, I had no real plan of where to go next. Options were:
- NORTH: Wayanad – a nature preserve that would require a bit of backtracking to the north of Kerala should I like to visit it.
- EAST: Munnar – an area green with hillsides of tea plantations, not terribly far from Kochi.
- SOUTH: Varkala, a beach town / backpacker haven.
After all my complaints about the beaches in Goa (neutral to negative feelings I still harbor) why would I want to go to another beach where I couldn’t do any diving or snorkeling? I’m not entirely sure. But I got convinced of heading south via a heavy recommendation on Varkala from Mathieu.
“Go to Varkala,” I remember him saying on multiple occasions with a strange sparkle in his eye.
Backtracking north for Wayanad would have cost me two transit days, minimum, and Munnar sounded scenic and nice, but only worth a day. I needed to head south at some point to continue the “grand” loop of India that my route was shaping up to be, so Varkala it was.
As usual, I managed to miss/botch my chance to book a train ticket (3 hours duration) and wound up on the government bus (6 hours). Oh well. I Tetris-ed my body and backpack in with the ever-changing cast of in-transit locals/regionals and put the headphones on.
These are the songs that keep getting played on transit days on the trusty iPod:
- Peggy Sue – “Funeral Beat”
- Feist – “The Bad In Each Other”
- Jay-Z & Kanye West – “That’s My Bitch”
- Katy B – “Disappear”
- SBTRKT – “Never Never”
- A.C. Newman – “The Cloud Prayer”
- Hieroglyphics – “No Nuts”
I showed up in Varkala in the dark-ala and found the new guesthouse – Shiva Garden Homestay.
It cost me 150 Rupees/night for a dorm bed (pad) with a mosquito net on top of a concrete building, covered by a thatched roof. Sounds rough at first look, but add a gentle sea breeze and it adds up.
Shiva Garden Homestay dorm, where I stayed. That horrible little dog wanted to sleep in my bed, but also insisted on trying to bite me. WHICH IS IT, HORRIBLE DOG?
And sleep could wait: Shiva Garden is one of those places where it couldn’t be any easier to make friends. Sit down at the common area out back (in which the restaurant serves a good thali, well worth the 100 Rupees) and somebody’ll start talking to you. Within a couple of hours, I was part of a fast-friends crew of ten travelers (it’s not always like this in India! Dorm beds and friendly communal lodgings can sometimes be hard to find.). Naturally, we set out for the bar.
This little weirdo wake-sitter dog was much more my speed.
A party scene? In India? Not the India I had experienced thus far. But then again, Varkala kind of “isn’t” India – it’s just Varkala.
Two of the bars here stay open as long & late as they’re selling drinks. The Rock’n’Roll Café has a long list of toxic cocktails for 100 Rupees each and a dance floor where you’ll probably end up even if they don’t play ALL your favorite Black Eyed Peas songs (don’t worry, they played the majority of the catalogue), and the Chill Out Café is where you’ll be if you plan on riding out the 650 ml Kingfishers until 7 am.
Once you’ve arisen in the morning, greeted by your hangover (9:30 AM for me – right when the hot, hot sun started hitting my dorm bed directly (yes, after 2-3 hours of sleep)), the beach is pretty nice, too.
Much of the tourist-oriented area of Varkala’s beach is on the North Cliff, which overlooks the beach below. The waters are part of the Lakshadweep Sea, and are fairly clear and choppy in a nice way. The waves are just big enough and the riptide just strong enough to warrant battling the breakers with your body. Fun! It’s no pipeline, but it’s no baby pool either.
The easy-access areas of the beach were fairly crowded with Indian tourists (the waters are holy, like so many are), but move north or south along the coast and you can have some sand more or less to yourself.
Ganesha (pictured in pink cover-up) enjoys some beach time.
Varkala was compact enough that I continually ran into the same travelers everywhere I went, which was a nice thing. First at breakfast, then at the beach, then at the bar (or something like that, anyway) – this made ongoing conversations easy and fun. In the three days I killed in Varkala, I made ten times that many friends (that’s thirty, you math lovers!).
“Varkala is special – like quicksand,” Berliner backpacker birthday girl and fellow Shiva Garden resident Valeria aptly noted.
It would’ve been easy to stay another day, another week in Varkala to soak up the sun on the beach and the accessible, friendly backpacker vibe, but my time in India can’t last forever – work e-mails with possible jobs were already starting to roll in from home (I work freelance), and I needed to get back on the road if I planned on getting to the remaining towns and places on my list.
NEXT STOP: Madurai, Tamil Nadu
