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!

Palomino

The next stop on our itinerary was Palomino, a small town on the Caribbean coast with a lovely beach and laid back vibe.

Palomino beach

The beach goes on for miles, but you're not supposed to swim due to strong offshore currents, however, we arrived to find around fifty people in the sea - all fine. So, we took the advice with a pinch of salt, only went in to waist deep and after the waves had broken. It’s too hot to not cool off!

Miles of beach in Palomino

There was glorious sunshine every morning, and we even had a view of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains from the bottom of the garden in our accommodation.

 

It's hard to believe that it's possible to see snow up there when we were stood melting down at sea level, in extremely high heat and humidity! It's apparently the highest peak in Colombia and you can just about make out the snowy peaks in my photo:

The snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains in the distance 

In the afternoon, the sunshine would eventually give way to thunderstorms and torrential rain and the occasional power cut.

The main mud road of the town is characterised by several large puddles that fill the entire road, so it takes some time to get anywhere, picking your way around the puddles.

When it rains, we were recommended to just go out barefoot to avoid the issue of soaking your trainers or losing a flip flop in the mud!

We went 'tubing' down the river one day – a much more sedate affair than in Laos – just floating down the river in a giant inner tube, with views of the mountains, until we reached the sea. We just had to be sure to get out before we floated out to sea!

 

Tubing in Palomino

Getting to the start point however was a little hairier - it basically involved getting on the back of a motorcycle taxi whilst carrying our tubes!

All in all, Palomino was a lovely place to stay for a few days. After four nights, we travelled down to Santa Marta, so we could do a day trip into Tayrona National Park.

Once in the park, we embarked upon a six-mile hike along the coast, which was tough as it was so hot and humid. It's also not possible to swim on most of the beaches due to the strong currents and big waves so we had to wait a while before we could cool off.

Tayrona National Park

Most of the park has well organised trails with boardwalks, but parts of the track are very muddy and we had to wade across three shallow rivers in some parts – I think probably due to the heavy rain that has been falling.

Rough seas in Tayrona Park

After two hours of hiking, we eventually reached Arricefes and there's a beach nearby where we could finally swim in a sheltered bay – where cooling off was much appreciated. The park is stunning – wild beaches, huge boulders and big waves. Well worth the strenuous hiking effort.

Huge boulder cracked in half

We were glad we decided against the option of hiring a hammock and mosquito net and staying over in the park – it seemed a fairly horrific experience – though one that Hannah apparently enjoyed when she visited a few years ago! Perhaps as we approach the end of our trip the travel fatigue is setting in and we need our home comforts!

We are now down to our final week – how time flies! First we’ll head back to Cartagena for a few days, then we fly to Mexico in preparation for our flight back to London.

Tune in again next week for the final instalment of the blog (well, for this trip anyway!)

Bocas Del Toro

It was a long journey over two days to get from Montezuma to Puerto Viejo, travelling via the capital, San Jose. Considering Costa Rica is a fairly well-developed country with a decent standard of living, it is surprising the condition of the roads, many of which are unsealed, pot-holed and require a four by four to get around. Even our accommodation in Montezuma advised leg one of the journey to San Jose would take three hours, where it in fact took seven! Still, we’re not in any kind of rush, so no problem there.

We arrived in San Jose to torrential rain, thunder storms and a power cut – it was actually a welcome relief to the high temperatures and humidity in Montezuma! Our accommodation had a view over Poas volcano, which had a small eruption a couple of weeks ago – just a bit of gas and smoke – but we were relieved to pass through without further incident as the area was on alert for a while, in case of further eruptions.

As we travelled through Monteverde and Montezuma, we kept meeting people headed from or to Bocas Del Toro, Panama (on the border with Costa Rica) – to the point where we wondered what we were missing. Upon a little research, we decided that too we should amend our itinerary (which was pretty open) to spend a week there and add another stamp to our passports…

So, we hopped on a bus to Puerto Viejo (a journey which actually took its designated travel time of five hours and not the usual seven!), the jumping off point for Bocas Del Toro.

Puerto Viejo is a backpacker destination in its own right, however – a very laid back atmosphere, miles of coastline, nice beaches, good surf and hot weather.

Puerto Viejo - Playa Cocles

Puerto Viejo is on the Caribbean Coast, to which there’s a really different vibe to the Pacific Coast. In addition to the local Costa Ricans (Ticos, as they like to call themselves) there are also local Caribbean people, speaking in their own Creole dialect and serving up ‘rice and beans’ and other Caribbean food in their restaurants.

We stayed near Playa Negra, where the sand is black (burning the soles of your feet as you run down to the sea) and two kilometres away there’s Playa Cocles, a long stretch of white sand, good surf and nice for swimming.

Surfboards on Playa Cocles

There’s a jungle path to walk between the Playa Negra and Playa Cocles and on the way, we saw three sloths in the trees! The first two were sleeping as we spotted them during the day, but we saw the third one at dusk and he’d just woken up and was having his dinner (breakfast?) Please forgive the terrible photo – I really tested the limits of my camera in the fading light and zooming right in. Still, you can still make out that it’s a sloth and at least it wasn’t moving too fast to photograph!

 

Sloth!

After a few nights in Puerto Viejo, we took the shuttle over the border into Panama and then the boat into Bocas del Toro.

Bocas Del Toro is a chain of islands and we chose Isla Bastimentos for our first stop, as it seemed a bit quieter with nice beaches. It's really picturesque with wooden houses built on stilts over the sea.

  

Isla Bastimentos

However, we decided to move to a different island after one night due to there being no running water on the island because of a water shortage.

We were allowed to have a short shower from the tank, but basically had to ask the hotel management for permission to use the water. Now, the weather app on my phone told me the humidity levels were at 92% at one point, which makes the 32 degree temperatures feel so much hotter, so you don't feel clean for long – and we decided we just couldn’t live without running water. What divas we are! 

So, we took a boat back over to the main island and stayed in Bocas town, which was perfect for us.
All the nice beaches are a short boat, or bus ride away and the town has the best food options as well – though to be honest the standard of food is nowhere near what it was in, say, Mexico!

The closest beach, on Isla Carenero, was idyllic with calm turquoise water, white sand, palm trees and a restaurant with decking out over the seas that served the best pina coladas. After a couple of visits there, however, Kev learned the hard way that there are also sand flies, which made a meal out him. Astonishingly, they went for Kev and not me – it is usually the other way around! At last count, Kev had over a hundred bites and is currently being driven to distraction by the itching…

Isla Carenero

The island was also home to some small crabs with one claw as big as their whole body – I thought it was interesting how some were right and some were left-handed (or clawed!)

 

Left and right-handed crabs!

Fortunately, we also visited some other lovely beaches without sand flies: Bocas del Drago, which leads on to Playa Estrella is home to hundreds of orange starfish, which you can see with a snorkel, just a few feet from the shore. I saw around thirty of them in as many metres, whilst swimming along the shore.

Bocas Del Drago

Starfish at Playa Estrella

I also thought I’d share with you the famous Costa Rican (and Panamanian, evidently) ‘suicide shower’ – so called because there is an un-earthed heating element in the shower head itself and you are advised not to touch the shower head with wet hands - for obvious reasons! This is a particularly fine example of one in our guest house, complete with gaffer tape and a piece of string holding it up! (Note: the accommodation also had a cold-water shower which we preferred to use!)

The famous suicide shower!

After another day in Bocas, we’re heading back to San Jose via Puerto Viejo for two nights to break up the journey. Then on Wednesday we fly to Colombia for the final leg of our journey – I will write again from there.

Tulum

A relatively quiet week (in terms of activity) for us this week as we took time to stop and stay in one place for a while. We’ve been to Tulum a few times before so we knew we’d be happy to spend a bit of time here. It’s also a good place to get some work done so we worked and relaxed hard on the many lovely beaches in the area.

Tulum Beach

Posing on the rocks!

Not so quiet was our week in terms of noise, as our ten-day stay just so happened to coincide with a ten-day Mayan music festival to celebrate the harvest. We found out the festival takes place twice a year and in our case, took place on the exact dates of our stay in Tulum!

The Mayans sure know how to party, kicking off around 10pm and finishing up around 4.30am every night. Lucky for us we were well-equipped with earplugs and decent noise-cancelling headphones as the music was so loud!

Unimpressed at the lack of sleep on our first night, Kev took it upon himself to craft a two-page letter to the accommodation management, written in Spanish (using Google Translate) at 4am – I would pay good money to see a copy of this letter now and wonder if it made sense in his sleep-deprived, non-Spanish speaking state!

We have been ‘glamping’ this week – essentially canvas tents with thatched, cabana-style roof and a real king-sized bed inside. All brand new and very comfortable with a pool and free bike hire to get around town.

Kev chilling out in the pool

We made the most of the bikes to cycle down to the beach and back most days – a respectable 15km round trip. The beach is stunning, on the Caribbean coast, but it has been really windy, which has washed in a lot of seaweed. However, it’s also a nice cool breeze to cut through the heat of the day and good fun playing in the waves, despite the odd piece of seaweed hitting you in the face!

Dodging the seaweed at Tulum Beach

We also went to visit some of the other beaches and cenotes just outside of town: Ixcacel beach (also very windy) is where the turtles go to lay their eggs, though being there in the daytime, we didn’t actually see any whilst we were there.

Turtle Beach at Ixcacel

A cenote is a fresh-water pool formed when a limestone cave collapses. There are loads of them in this part of Mexico and are great for swimming and snorkelling. The colour of the water is just gorgeous too.

Ixcacel Cenote

Kev claims he once saw a baby crocodile in one and today, in Casa Cenote, we were talking to a scuba diver who had just seen a six-foot croc during his dive in the same cenote! He said the croc was eating a duck when he saw it, so wasn’t concerned that it might also be interested in him for lunch, but I think he must have had nerves of steel to not freak out!

 

Casa Cenote

We went for a swim but after hearing that story we stayed pretty close to the edge, in case the hungry crocodile comes back out! Sat on the edge, we had our own mini 'fish spa' with little fish nibbling at our toes!

 

Our own mini fish spa!

We made friends with the owner of a local Mayan restaurant during our stay. Having planned to just pop in for a quick drink on our way back from the beach, he kept bringing us tortillas, salsas and Mayan specialties that he wanted us to try, to get a real taste of the region. In the end, we didn’t have room for dinner that night, but we did make sure we gave him a particularly generous tip when only charged us for the drinks.

We went back for dinner again a couple of nights later and loved the local fresh fish, ceviche, refried beans and other specialities he prepared for us. We continue to eat well – especially when tacos for two cost as little as £1.50!

Kev and the Mayan family

The contrast in Tulum is the glut of high-end resorts and Western-style restaurants versus the local Mexican and Mayan establishments – there’s a real divide between the rich tourists and the locals, but it’s still a nice town and done on a budget it is possible to live cheaply – fortunately we’re still on budget!

Today we head an hour along the coast to Playa del Carmen, then hop on the ferry across to Cozumel Island – most famous for scuba diving, and will be our first dives of the trip.

Railay

For the last few days in Thailand, we decided to head to Railay for a change of scenery and some more of what Thailand is most famous for: beautiful beaches.

With tall limestone cliffs and pillars towering out of the water, Railay is stunning and is the classic picture postcard image of Thailand, with wooden long tail boats floating in clear, turquoise water against a sunny backdrop of blue sky and vertical limestone cliffs.

Kev with all his bags

Railay beach

Railay is on the Thai mainland but is only reachable by boat due to the thick jungle interior. Because of its jungle location, there’s also quite a lot of wildlife in Railay: there are lots mosquitoes around, a constant roar of cicadas and we even saw a water monitor (a giant lizard with a forked tongue like a snake)

A water monitor dashes into the undergrowth

Electricity is only switched on at night and only a few of the higher-end resorts have generator power during the day. It’s funny how it feels more remote than Koh Lanta, despite being attached to the mainland.

We had a tip from the owner of one of our favourite beachfront restaurants in Koh Lanta to stay in the next beach along from Railay: a bay called Tonsai - which is as beautiful as the main beach in Railay but less touristy and much quieter. 
In fact, I think it might be a bit of a well-kept secret as there was nothing listed on Trip Advisor or Booking.com about Tonsai, so if you were searching in advance for accommodation, Tonsai wouldn’t even be listed, despite the extensive options currently available. A top tip if you are considering heading to the region!

Tonsai beach

Railay and the surrounding area are most well-known amongst climbers and the limestone cliffs offer world-class climbing – but Kev didn't fancy the heights and I (with limited climbing experience and having only recently recovered from shoulder surgery) thought it might be too much too soon. 
It was also really hot and climbing in the full heat of the sun seemed a little too energetic for us! Instead, we opted for a few quiet days on the beach, preparing for our imminent return to the UK.

Limestone cliffs at Railay

At low tide, it’s possible to walk around the rocky shoreline to the main beach in Railay West, where there’s a walking street with cafes and a small market. 

The footpath leads on round to Railay East, where I had to face my fear of macaques and pass through a group of mischievous monkeys who were trying to steal food from the street vendors – we saw an alpha male steal a barbequed corn on the cob and run up a tree to eat it. 
It’s a constant battle between street-vendor and monkey – fortunately, it meant the monkeys weren’t too interested in the tourists, but I still didn’t want to get close enough to test out that theory as I’d left behind my monkey stick! I’ll be sure to pack the toy snake on the next leg of the trip!

A long-tailed macaque

From Railay we wended our way back to Bangkok via Phuket, treating ourselves to some nicer accommodation along the way – I think there are only so many days you can comfortably put up with a basic hut with a cold shower! On the plus side, any room with air con and a hot shower is relative luxury so needn’t break the bank!

So, it’s London for the next few weeks before we head out on leg two. We’re not looking forward to the cold weather, but it will at least be nice to sleep in our own bed and catch up with people. See you on the other side!