Varkala - Kerala, India

Time for some beach time!

From Monroe Island we happened across a friendly tuktuk driver (who was also an excellent salesman) who convinced us to let him take us via the scenic route to Varkala. It turned out to be a great call as he showed us temples, churches, beaches and colourful local fishing villages along the way.

The beaches were golden and unspoilt all the way down the coast and it was great to cut out the main towns, transport interchanges and busy main roads on a direct route to our next destination.

Varkala is a small town with a string of golden-sand beaches set up against a high cliff.

Perched right along the cliff edge is a narrow road of shops and restaurants. It’s a very pretty setting, and a lovely stroll along the street to browse the shops whilst simultaneously looking out to sea - and what a view! However it is certainly an accident waiting to happen with it being so precariously balanced on the edge! 

Apparently in the recent heavy rains and floods that Kerala experienced, there were a series of landslides and so the shops are even closer to the edge now than they were earlier in the year. Some shopkeepers even lost an area of their shop used to hang clothes outside.

The beach is the main attraction in Varkala and is popular with locals and tourists alike, especially as it’s tropical weather in Kerala in winter - compared to cold weather in the north of the country (and even snow in the mountains at this time of year).

The beach is also very popular with westerners so the dress code and modesty rules for ladies are a bit more relaxed and it’s ok to wear a bikini without a constant consideration of whether I should be covering up! To be fair, I am sure I should technically be covered up, as all the Indian ladies were swimming fully clothed (as we saw in Alleppey), but it’s a lot more relaxed here and I selfishly enjoyed having the chance to work on my tan for a few days!

The sea is safe for swimming and there are lifeguards on duty - though there are constantly big waves crashing into shore from across the Arabian Sea.

I couldn’t quite figure out what the lifeguards were up to, however, as at regular intervals, they would get up and blow their whistles, seemingly pointing at Indian men and telling them to get out of the sea, or move further down the beach. They weren’t telling tourists or families to get out of the sea, just the Indian guys and especially groups of lads! I should point out also that everyone was keeping themselves to themselves and it’s not like the groups of boys were being intimidating or a nuisance, so I’m not sure what the lifeguards were up to - or whether I have just got the wrong end of the stick and imagined this!

In any case it was lovely to be able to frolic in the waves and cool off in the sea.

Our hotel was away from the cliff area on an adjacent hill and we also had a sea view from our room. Breakfast was served on our own private balconies each morning - a very pleasant was to start the day. 

Most days fell into a similar rhythm, mainly involving sunbathing and reading on the beach, swimming and when we weren’t doing that, we were enjoying the local seafood (huge swordfish, barracuda or grouper on the grill), or a drink and enjoying the view. 

Happily, the alcohol rules are slightly more relaxed here and most restaurants serve alcoholic drinks, though whether they are doing this discreetly out of sight of the authorities I am not sure! It’s nice to enjoy a refreshing sundowner after a hard day on the beach in any case.

The town was lively in the run-up to Christmas, though still fairly quiet in terms of tourist numbers, as we have seen throughout our entire trip. 

There’s a tradition here for teenagers to dress up as Santa with red robes and masks and take to the streets with loud drums, dancing and wishing people a merry Christmas along the way. We must have seen five groups of Santas in one evening.

We decided to try one last Ayurvedic massage and, fortunately for me, I had a better experience than the previous time in Cochin. We were sold a 45 minute treatment, which confusingly went on for 90 minutes - for a princely sum of £10 each! This treatment was a deeper tissue massage than we had previously and involved massaging heated oil into the back and shoulders using herbal compresses. It was pretty good, though it sounded like they were heating the oil in a frying pan - and as I was lying face down I couldn’t see what the therapist was doing - so I was a little nervous they were about to scald me with boiling oil - but it was fine!

Whilst I was there, I also got my haircut for £2, which certainly beats having to pay the extortionate London prices!

From Varkaka it was homeward bound, flying from Trivandrum to Delhi, then from Delhi back to London. 

Fun fact about Trivandrum: the zoo there is the zoo that book ‘The Life of Pi’ was based on.

It was a chilly 11 degrees Celsius when we landed in Delhi, late in the evening on Christmas Day - good preparation for our imminent return to London! It makes you realise what a huge country India is, to experience such a broad range of temperatures.

So, now we’re back home to open our Christmas presents, try and squeeze in a Christmas dinner or two, and stock up on discounted mince pies before they leave supermarket shelves!

Happy new year, everyone!

Cochin - Kerala, India

Because of our extensive travels last year, we’ve not travelled too far this year - it’s mainly been European city breaks and a week in Brittany - so we’re excited to be going on a ‘proper’ two-week jaunt to exotic climes!

I secretly used my air miles to upgrade Kev and I to business class for our flight to Delhi, so we could get some rest on the way and arrive fully refreshed, ready for our holiday; but in reality I think we were too excited and couldn’t sleep, despite having a flat bed on the plane. Still, it was nice to lie down instead of the usual cramped conditions.

On arrival we had a six-hour layover in Delhi before our onward flight to Cochin so we made ourself comfortable in an airport lounge for a shower and a nap, followed by coffee and some dinner before we departed. We were surprised to see Costa, WHSmith and Subway in the airport arrivals hall and didn’t feel so far from home after all!

The Air India plane to Cochin seemed to be falling apart with interiors that looked like they’d never been refitted since its inaugural flight in the 1980’s, but with a little faith in Air India’s Star Alliance membership and only a short distance to cover, we were safely delivered to Cochin International Airport, where a friendly taxi driver was waiting to take us to our first accommodation.

After twenty-four hours travelling we were ready to go straight to bed in our lovely air-conditioned room. Our Homestay was called “Kevin’s Placid Homestay” and our hosts asked if we chose it because of Kev’s name - yes and no I suppose, but it was very comfortable and a great location in the centre of town, in the area known as Fort Kochi.

On leaving London the temperature was a mild (for the UK) ten degrees, so we had to quickly readjust to the sticky 28 degrees at night and high humidity - but I think I’ll take that over the onset of the UK winter! We were very grateful for the very effective air conditioning in the room, however, despite Kev’s propensity to turn it off in the night when he inevitably gets cold!

Apparently the temperature here feels like a good ten degrees more than the actual temperature due to the humidity, so our comfortable 32 degrees in the day in fact felt more like 42, which is less comfortable!

In search of an opportunity to cool down, and making the most of Kerala’s reputation for Ayurveda, we went for an Ayurvedic massage in a nice air conditioned room. As a qualified massage therapist, I try to experience the different types of massage wherever I go in the world but I can’t say that Ayurvedic massage is for me - they basically poured what feels like a gallon of oil over me from a great height, starting with drenching my hair in it. The best part for me was definitely the shower at the end, though it took at least two showers to feel like I’d washed off all the oil! Kev had a slightly better experience, though whether that’s down to having a better therapist, or being less squeamish about being doused in oil, I’m not sure!

Continuing with our cultural immersion, we booked on to a Keralan cooking class in the following morning and soon realised that Indian cooking is something you learn over a lifetime as opposed to in a three-hour class! There are so many spices and rules about how much to use and the order in which you add them to the dish (in addition to the basics of which spices to use - and not use - for different food types).

We made four dishes: sambar, fish curry, anial and coconut chutney and after learning how to prepare them we sat down to a hearty lunch, which was delicious - all the more so for having cooked it ourselves!

In the afternoon we took a tuktuk to the Kerala folklore museum, where there are three floors of artifacts crammed into every nook and cranny of the building, with each floor displaying Muslim, colonial and Hindu influences respectively. It was interesting and very ornate but they could have done with a building five times the size to display all the exhibits and do them justice.

To round off our final day in Cochin we went to see a traditional Kathakali performance. An hour before the show starts the audience can watch the performers sat cross-legged on the stage, putting on their make-up; then follows an introduction and explanation of the art form, to help understand the meaning of the dance and in particular the facial movements, and then the show - an hour’s episode of what would traditionally be a performance of several hours that goes on all night! We were quite grateful for the abridged version, albeit a very touristy one and the show was fantastic.

On holiday and in a hot country it is customary for us to enjoy a cold beer, however Kerala is due to become a dry state, so the sale of alcohol is heavily regulated and restricted. It’s illegal to advertise alcohol and only a very few number of establishments are licensed to sell it - although they are always very busy with locals and tourists alike.

When enquiring about the nearest bar to get a beer one evening, an ex-pat Brit told us to ask for ‘special tea’ - namely beer served in a teapot and teacups to make it look like tea! We found a bar serving beer in the end and didn’t have to resort to speaking in a secret code but there’s definitely a ‘speakeasy’ vibe to alcohol vending establishments and they are few and far between.

Next we’re off down the coast to Alleppey, home to the beginning of the network of backwaters to spend some time on a houseboat. I’ll write again from there.

Pai

There are 762 curves on the 135km road from Chiang Mai to Pai – except ‘curves’ doesn’t really do the journey description justice. What this really means is three hours of sharp hairpin bends and steep mountain roads – a journey for the strongest stomachs only – made in a minivan by a driver who thinks he’s on a race track! (The minivan drivers here have a reputation for speeding and blindly overtaking on these mountain roads – perhaps because they want to get there quicker and squeeze in another journey, or perhaps they drive the route every day and know the roads well – but it’s not for the faint-hearted! For those who are familiar with the hairpin bends between Penberth and St Buryan in Cornwall, this is a fair description of the majority of the journey, without exaggeration!

Everyone in Pai hires a scooter when they arrive. All the main sights are a few kilometres outside of the centre – too far to walk, but easily accessible by moped – and at a cost of just £2 a day to hire one we decided to take advantage. Our accommodation was also up a steep mountain road and at night there were a lot of barking dogs – they probably meant no harm but it was hard to hold our nerve when the dogs ran up to (greet?) us – so the scooter also meant we didn’t have to run the gauntlet after dinner every night and we got back unscathed. 

We stayed in a hut/bungalow in the aptly-named Mountain View Guest House – and what a view it was! Every morning we woke up in the clouds and watched the mountains appear during breakfast as the sun burnedt though the morning mist. I could get used to waking up like that every morning! Some days we awoke to thick fog – and it was really cold – other days we were above the clouds, looking down on them like we were flying above the mountains in an aeroplane. By 10.30 everyday, however, the sun had won out and we had a week of perfect, sunny weather.

Our breakfast view

There is a downside, however, to living up a mountain in an area of dense jungle – that’s being closer to nature. Our bathroom at night kept on surprising us – one night we went in to find a scorpion (who on closer inspection put its sting up – eek!) We came back another night to find a large frog in the toilet (which we gladly flushed back down!) and pretty much every other night 2 large slugs came to visit – but always disappeared by morning. I’m not sure how they got in, or where they went but we always made sure we put flip flops on to go to the toilet in the night!

Our bungalow

So off on our scooter we went, visiting Mhor Pheng and Pembok waterfalls, Pai Canyon and the Land Split.

Pai Canyon

Mor Pheng waterfall

The Land Split is just that – where the land has split following earthquakes in 2008 and 2011. It’s not hugely impressive to look at in itself, but the enterprising farmer (who can no longer use the land for farming) turned it into a tourist attraction by giving all visitors a picnic of fruits grown on the land, including passion fruit, papaya, banana and roselle (which is in the hibiscus family) juice and jam – all for a small voluntary donation.

Roselle flowers drying in the sun

Pai is very beautiful and consequently, it’s almost impossible to do it justice on camera. The impressive mountain panoramas, ever changing as the sun and shade moves throughout the day, and picturesque natural wonders. There’s always the smell of wood smoke in the air (due to controlled burning in farming) and a humid, verdant smell which adds to its beauty.

The Land Split

The town itself is a small square, of which three streets are pedestrianised every night and as the sun goes down they turn into the night market – or walking streets, as they are known here. The stalls sell a combination of street food and drinks, clothes and souvenirs and are a great way to spend the evening, soaking up the atmosphere. 

Walking Street (market)

Pai is hugely popular with Chinese tourists and western backpackers and as the evening progresses the streets get busier as everyone heads into town for dinner. When we’d had our fill of beautiful scenery for the day, we enjoyed just hanging out in the town over a fruit shake and noodles in a street café, or a beer by the river.

If you’re ever in Northern Thailand I would highly recommend a visit to Pai – assuming you can stomach the minivan ride there, it’s definitely worth the effort.

Next up we’re continuing on to Chiang Rai (back via Chiang Mai for a couple of nights), then over the border into Laos. I’ll blog again next week.

Margaret River, Bangkok and Chiang Mai

For our final few days in Australia we decided to head south to Margaret River, another region of Western Australia famous for its wines. Apparently in terms of weather, climate and soil conditions the area is very similar to the South of France – Bordeaux Region – and so will be able to produce similar style wines.

Compared to Perth, the first thing you notice about Margaret River is that the temperature is a few degrees cooler and the wind has dropped considerably, so it was much easier to pitch the tent!

We arrived on Kev’s birthday so we headed straight out to start celebrating. The wineries were all a short drive away so we decided to stay in the town instead and visited a new brewery that has recently opened and sample some of their craft beers.

The next day we booked on to a wine tour so we’d both get to taste the wines and neither one of us have to drive. Gemma recommended us a company called Bushtucker Tours, which took us to four vineyards, a chocolate factory, a dairy (to sample some of the local cheeses) and a brewery – with a big lunch thrown in to soak up some of the alcohol! 

We were treated to a gourmet buffet of local delicacies including kangaroo, crocodile, quondong (a fibrous desert fruit) and ‘bush limes’ – it was our first time to eat kangaroo and crocodile and both were lovely – lean and flavoursome and not really like anything else I’ve tried.

The weather began to turn on our last day, so we decided to head back to Perth before the rain started and pack our bags ready for our flight to Bangkok and the next leg of the trip.

We’ve been to Bangkok once before – at the start of our last trip – so we decided to spend just one night there before flying up to Chiang Mai for the start of our travels around Northern Thailand. 

Still, it was good to be back. Bangkok is a huge and crazy city so we booked a place to stay on the Khaosan road – it’s really touristy but good fun for one night and has plenty of entertainment and things to do. 

One of the first thing we noticed when we arrived was the humidity compared to Australia – given that the temperatures are pretty similar, it’s a lot more humid here, even though it’s dry season (or Thailand’s winter)

After a quick nap and dip in the pool, we popped out for a wander around. Despite being in a tourist hot spot, the bars and restaurants are so cheap (especially compared to Australian prices!) There’s excellent street food, all cooked fresh and we really were spoiled for choice. Amongst the various street food stalls was a cart of (cooked) insects, ranging from tarantulas, crickets, cockroaches, beetles, scorpions, snakes and mealworms – but neither of us fancied taking our chances with them!

As the evening progressed, the city really began to wake up. More and more people flooded the streets and there were hawkers everywhere, selling their wares. It was really vibrant and great for people watching...

Amongst the many bars, restaurants and market stalls there are also loads of massage places, with a Thai massage costing just £2 or £3 for half an hour – this was a welcome sight and we opted for a foot rub, but soon went back later on for a shoulder, neck and head massage – to undo the damage done by carrying around a heavy rucksack. I think we’ll be having regular massage during our time in Thailand! The only slight drawback is the language barrier so Kev found it hard tell his massage therapist if the pressure was a bit too firm – the standard was otherwise pretty good!

Chiang Mai is the capital of Northern  Thailand and is much less hectic and smaller than Bangkok. 

We've been staying in a hostel a short walk away from the night market and a short tuk-tuk ride from the temples of the old town/city centre. We enjoyed taking in the temples by day and shopping, eating and soaking up the atmosphere at the night market in the evening. 

We spent a day wandering around the old town's many temples, filled with golden Buddhas and monks in their orange robes. 

We felt like we'd hardly scratched the surface - there are so many of them!

We wanted to see some elephants in the wild whilst in Chiang Mai. There has been a recent shift in elephant tourism with people historically wanting to ride the elephants, but now prefer to see them enjoying their natural environment and not being asked to perform circus tricks or take people on treks. Tripadvisor has even stopped advertising any tours that contains any such animal cruelty, so it was important for us that we picked a tour with the elephants’ welfare in mind.

  
At the Dumbo Elephant Spa (so called because you get to give the elephants a mud bath then wash them off in the river afterwards) there are six elephants, of which five have been rescued and one baby who has never known any ‘circus life’ or any cruelty.

We spent time with all the elephants, who all have very different personalities. Elephants have a similar life span to humans, living up to a hundred years old and have similar levels of maturity so a three-year-old elephant will be like a naughty toddler! One such elephant has even been given the name ‘Naughty Boy’ and he was always misbehaving, trying to get more food by stealing our lunch, or by acting boisterously in the mud, so we had to keep our distance.

We started off by feeding all the elephants some fruit for breakfast then followed them up the mountain path to watch them digging and feeding on tree roots. The highlight of the day however was the mud spa (both for the elephant and for us!) The elephants were absolutely delighted to roll around in the mud and have mud splashed all over them. The sanctuary staff were also very keen to splash mud all over us, making sure we got stuck in.

It was thrilling to get so close to these massive animals and also to see such strong personalities and such a sense of fun, despite only spending a few hours with them – but also a little bit scary – and therefore wise to be cautious around them!

Tomorrow we’re off to our next destintion, Pai. I’ll write again from there.