MIke – True to form, we arrived in Kerala to rain, at 4am, without any place to stay… yeah, good planning guys. There were two places outside of town that we were very stoked on seeing. Unfortunately, none of the rickshaw drivers knew where or what these places were. To make matters worse, as we were soon to discover, rarely anyone spoke a lick of English. One guy, with a “yeah, yeah, yeah”, claimed to know where we were going, only to take us on a milk run to all the different hotels he got a commission from. When we dismissed each one with an emphatic “No! This is not the one!”, he’d let out a very frustrated grunt and speed off to the next place. Eventually, he dropped us off at the train station so we could get a rickshaw driver who actually knew where we were going.
Well, the next guy didn’t… We were soon to discover that our guest house had three separate properties, but the manager only lived at one of them. The first place he took us was part of the “Costa Malabari” series of guest houses, but not resided by the manager. I think I woke up all the guests in that house before discovering we were at the wrong place. I was very relieved when we finally got to the right place, and found out that we wouldn’t be staying at the other particular house, as I don’t think the fellow guests would’ve liked us too much.
We got checked in, and slept for a few hours (the overnight bus ride was pretty rough, and I don’t think Teg or I got more than an hour of sleep). We woke up, had lunch, and walked down to the beach to discover that the debacle of getting there was entirely worth it! In our Goa post, I mentioned that at times it felt like our own private beach, and that it was paradise; I take it all back. This place WAS our private beach (except for a few local fishermen), and WAS most definitely paradise. There were miles upon miles of untouched sand. In fact, there was so much beach to explore that we’d rarely encounter anyone along our walk, not even our fellow guests.
How’s the weather in Canada?
Teg- Our time at the Costa Malabari was awesome! The people we were staying with were super cool, some Italians, Germans, Dutch and S. Africans, no Canadians yet though. The long hockey talks will have to remain amongst the two of us still hahaha!
Definitely agree with Mike, the beach seemed sacredly our own at times. However, I guess one of the German girls that was staying at the same cottage as us had a little bit different of an experience... Apparently during her days of swimming and beaching, she spotted a few men tucked away in the shade staring at her and performing..(ahem)..masculine duties to themselves! She didn’t let them go unnoticed, thank god, so I guess in-between her beaching and swimming was some yelling and cursing!hahaha
During our first night there, we were lucky to be allowed to witness Theyyam. A few of us all got rick-shaws to take us into town where this performance was taking place, which I did find in the end kind of odd that such a sacred ceremony was on the corner of some busy street instead of off in the bush somewhere. Regardless though, the performance was amazing. The drummers had me sold early in the performance, long before the main act came into view. After the dance, this dancer-man turned prophet gave his insights to a long line of women, some of wish were crying during their meetings with him. It was an amazing experience to be part of, and as such we donated generously.
A little off topic but I feel the need to mention this. The food has been unreal thus far, but this one dish has become definitely one of my favourites (and I think Mike’s too). Ghobi Chilli. So good. Look it up, find it and try it!
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