Varkala is perched on a cliff top, Tibetan trinket shops clinging all along a ramshakle redbrick pathway that is the main promenade. It's an hippyesque tourist resort, full of young and old practising yoga and looking for Ayurvedic health retreats.
Unable to sleep, we set off for an early morning walk along the cliffs in the pitch black with a big torch borrowed from the hotel. We reached a little inlet just as a soft grey dawn was emerging, to watch a sturdy group of fishermen trying to man handle their boat into the water. Further on there is a multi coloured mosque right by the beach. By the time we walked back the fishermen had swum back to the beach and were pulling the huge circular net and boat back with the catch all hands to the rope like a tug of war.
Breakfast of pancakes and mushroom omlette at the Coffee Temple cafe run by an ageing Englishman ( well our age probably!) who looked like he should really be living in the home counties not southern India, but later saw him on a huge Enfield.
By rickshaw we went to another fishing village, a deserted black sandy beach that burned your feet and I hitched up my dress Indian style and paddled ...warm warm water so different to Portugal! Later I braved the climb down the rickety crumbling stone steps to the main beach, but the red flag was up so couldn't swim. Apparently the currents here make it one of the most dangerous beaches in Kerala.
In all...a lovely lazy day, we watched sun go down from the Juice Shack roof terrace...an amazing ruby red globe then suddenly it disappearedinto the haze above the horizon.
