Well, all of our planning for Delhi is nearly finished and a group of us headed to Varkala for the weekend. Varkala is one of the most sought out destinations in southern India; its beaches are supposed to rival many in Thailand. Unfortunately, summer is the absolute worst time to go there—its Monsoon season in the state of Kerala. The monsoons are somewhat confusing because they vary from state to state (I’m still struggling to understand them after two months). While Karalla borders Tamil Nadu, its monsoon is a full two months earlier. Varkala’s idyllic beaches and seafood cafes are at their optimum in December—we were a full six months off!
Our nine-hour train ride ended up getting delayed for over four hours. The eight of us sat in the Satur train station munching on fried bananas and passing around our various novels that many of us were re-reading out of boredom. After two months, I expect extreme delays in India: trains, buses, planes, restaurants. Everywhere. I notice myself acclimating to the pace of life that I found so irritating and sluggish at beginning of my trip. We joyously arrived at the Varkala train station at two in the morning. Friederike had been there in April so she knew the address to a hotel where we could crash for the night. The hotel ended up being a miniature bamboo-house village! While attractive from the outside, our village was in the off-season, and the insides of our huts were moldy, sand-filled, and wet. Fiona, Friederieke, and I shared a bed and shivered under the damp covers the entire night.
We awoke excitedly in the morning—at least we had the beach! As we made our way to the shore, (more like swam through the flooded streets) we were non-chalantly informed by a police officer that the beach had been completely destroyed by the monsoons (this is normal during the rainy season). He looked at us pityingly, and we all started laughing. Luckily, we weren’t the only “dumb” tourists in Varkala. A couple restaurants were still open and a few shops braved the storms to sell the typical Indian souvenirs I had seen countless times. Surprisingly, our best discovery wasn’t the shopping or the food. As a group of eight girls “roughing it” for two to three months in India, we would have killed for a hair cut, a manicure, anything. We couldn’t believe our luck when we saw a lonely hut standing among rubble—it was a beauty salon! Manicures, pedicures, facials, henna tattoos, waxing, and massages—it offered everything! We all crammed into the small hut to sign up for various appointments. The owner was in the middle of a wax, but she came out to greet us. The woman getting the wax ripped open the curtain (no modesty here!) and proudly announced that “Sister Lakshimi gave the best Brazilians ever!” I, right then and there, decided that I would NOT be getting a Brazilian that day. I “copped out” and signed up for a facial and a henna tattoo. Many of the girls got full body massages, pedicures, and even henna hair treatment. After signing up, we trudged through the mud to the “German Bakery” restaurant (in honor of Friederike of course!) We spent our day sipping herbal Darjeeling tea and eating homemade peanut butter (yes, they even had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!) We took shifts—when it was time for our appointment, half of us stayed at the restaurant and the other half went to the salon. My facial and henna tattoo ended up costing a total of eight dollars. A facial in the US would be about $100 at a nice salon and even more at a spa. It was a great way to relax—especially because we would be traveling so much in the up coming week.
We ended up eating dinner at the German bakery and then walked back to our hotel. On our way back to our “hut village,” we stumbled on an “Indian Rave”(this is the only way I could think to describe it). There were about thirty young Indian men (AND women) who were dancing conspicuously around a large fire. It was honestly one of the strangest things I have seen; the fire alone was somewhat terrifying. We managed to maneuver our way around all the inebriated (more serious substance abuse was probably going on) dancers and made a beeline for our hotel. Because of the monsoon season, it was pouring rain and incredibly windy—a long cold night was in store for us and while I had a great time I was ready to go back to Sivakasi in the morning.
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