What is it about Kerala and 80 mile / 4 hour taxi journeys? The driver who’d dropped us off 2 days earlier returned to take us down to Varkala for some beach time. The inland route seemed to be quicker than the coast road and was a pretty uneventful trip, through lots of towns, until we were within about 5 miles of our destination. Then we hit the construction works for a major new road and chaos ensued, with our poor driver (who we suspect had never been to Varkala before) becoming increasingly flustered, trying to take a short cut and being turned around by a very officious man with a whistle. We arrived at our accommodation unscathed but the poor guy’s nerves were in tatters – makes a change from our’s being!
Home for the next 6 nights was Mango Villa – we seem to choose places with ‘Mango’ in the name – another 9+ Exceptional rated place on Agoda. It’s a villa with about 6 rooms, with independent entrances, owned by a brother and sister who escaped Delhi for the relative peace of Kerala. It was nice enough, but I suspect some of their mates may have written a few of the glowing reviews, and the photography was definitely creatively lit. But the room was spacious, air-conditioned, had a comfy bed (according to Steve, Debbie found it rock hard but slept like a baby nevertheless) and a decent shower, and it was cheap. Another £35/night place was keeping us WELL within our accommodation budget, but we do need to try to save a bit in India to allow for some of the more pricey destinations to come.
Varkala is a holy town, with the resort dotted along clifftops with 80 steps down to the beach. My friend/colleague Ivar had described it as ‘European, but in a good way’ and I’d say he was spot on. Lots of restaurants line the cliff-top path, all pretty much doing the same menu – generic Indian, Chinese, pizza, pasta – and all good. We did find a couple of places (InDa Cafe and Sun Francisco) that were more ‘hipster and worthy’ – with smoothies, smashed avocado and the like – and tended to frequent them for brekkie. Our go-to was the ABBA restaurant, primarily because it was relatively straightforward to get a beer. The challenges of Kerala and booze aside, Varkala is even more difficult due to it’s ‘holiness’ – so definitely no overt beer sales (and you’d never see it on a menu) and usually served in a mug or teapot. Some places were extortionate for a beer and you had to pay in cash – ABBA wan’t too bad and the beer was served in a nice beer mug, souvenir of Goa for some bizarre reason.
One thing we learned as soon as we ventured out of Mango Villa was that the roads and paths around it were a complete maze. There was a walkway along the cliff top, past all the shops and restaurants, and there were roads further inland leading to the big resort hotels – but the two didn’t join up! If you found the right pathway you might find your way through to the beach, but were equally likely to end at a locked gate or in somebody’s garden. Our accommodation address was “Behind the Tibetan Market” which gave a clue and we were directed to a wooden sign saying “To the Beach” that led down a narrow alley, though the Tibetan Market and onto the cliff path. The trick was to not meet a scooter coming the other way!
The beach was good, but the waves were fierce and there was definitely no doing physio exercises in the sea for Debbie – it was as much as she could manage to stay upright in the waves, and often got trashed. The lifeguards were comedy, blowing their whistles, waving their red flags, trying to corral people into a small space so they could keep eyes on them more easily, everyone ignoring them.
We did very little in our 6 days in Varkala – find a cafe for brekkie, grab some sun (Debbie), sit in the shade (Steve), have some sundowner beers in mugs, shower, dinner and more beer in mugs, sleep and repeat. It gave us time to sort out most of the next parts of our India trip though – with Steve now mastering the dark art of the Indian Railways website to book tickets for 9 journeys.
Most people in Varkala were getting up at the crack of dawn and doing yoga, followed by meditation and more yoga. It’s amazing how many trust fund kids were ‘finding themselves’ and brunching.
Overall, we far preferred Goa for beach time. In Goa it was a very short walk from our hotel to the beach, on the level, and the sun-beds were free. In Varkala the walk and steps down to the beach meant that going to the beach was more of an undertaking and once you were there, there was no chance of a drink or a snack without climbing back up the cliff. Also the incessant whistling of the life guards became annoying. Our suggestion if you just want a beach holiday in India would be Palolem, but perhaps the best combination would then be to go there and then visit Kochi and the highlands of Kerala.
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