Day 10 started very early with our alarm going off at 4.15. We were in reception by 4.30 and all departed on time at 4.45. We were given a packed breakfast by the hotel.
The station was dark but quite busy. The train departed at 5.50 and there was a bit of platform hopping as the departure platform changed. Quite like the UK really but that is where the similarities ended.
I had expected a train similar to that of the train in Thailand last year from Bangkok to Chang Mei or something similar to what I remember from travelling from Delhi to Agra some 40 years ago or the train we took with Explore from Jaipur across Rajestan 20 years ago. It was worse than all of them. We were on a 2nd class a/c carriage and split into 2 groups,breaking the party and a families into two in a carriage which 3 + 2 seats either side of the gangway. As Engine warned the a/c got quite fierce and it got cold. Thank goodness for jumpers. It train was also showing signs of age but functioned just fine. It was a pity it was arranged as it was as there was little opportunity to move about, chat and loom out the window. There was no much to see out the train as it was dark and as we soon found out the windows were filthy and tinted yellow…. Everything looked like it was from an early colour film. If there had been a 1st class that might have been more fun… as it was it was fine and we experienced Indian intercity travel… Tea coffee curry and doughnuts on sale throughout the journey.
We were met at the station and travelled via 2 minibuses to our hotel in Kovalam – the Sagara Beach Resort. This inset of the hillside above Lighthouse beach at the lighthouse end of the beach and had good sized a/c rooms. Really quite nice, and an easy walk to the beach and also with 2 swimming pools. We had to hang around fora hour waiting until 12 before we could check in. It would have been better to have been told and we could have explored straight away as it waste ended up the in restaurant who were ill prepared for a party of 17 just as they were clearing up from breakfast. We did all get a little gift from the hotel a small cloth bag with a bottle of sandalwood oil. Nice touch.
We soon got to the beach and spent the rest of the afternoon there. The sea was great fun with big waves rolling in and breaking with a great crash. We hired two body boards and you could surf the whole way in or get tossed head over heels! We had a bit of fun bargaining for deck chairs and umbrellas and ended up with 8 chairs and 4 umbrellas for the group. It turns out the chap hiring the chairs knows Engine. Does everyone know him? Anyway he looked after us well and I paid him the full price in the end rather than the bargained price – the difference was less than £1!
Kovalam is quite different from Varkala and the sea front is crowded with 100s of shops and restaurants, people selling bits and bobs along the pavement in front of the shops, fruit sellers touting the fruit cut up to people on the beach and tan coloured stray dogs all looking for bits and also as if they are from the same extended family. Lighthouse beach leads around the headland to another beach which was visited by many more Indian families than Lighthouse beach many of them going not the sea fully clothed.
We did some shopping before going back to the hotel and both Charlotte and Tim ended up with silver bracelets, I got a T shirt, we got some Kashmeri placemats and C also got some other cheaper bracelets.
As we had the beer and wine we bought in Cochin cooling in Nick and Libby’s fridge the adults all gathered in their room at 6.30 for pre dinner drinks before we all met for dinner at 7 and went to a restaurant called See Bee. It turns out this must be the local Explore hang out in Kovalam as there were Explore stickers in the restaurant. We had a pretty good meal. Quite a few had tiger prawns which were tasty in a curry sauce (the dish had a more exotic name but I don’t recall what) but as with so much of the food here needed some picking over to get he good bits. The chicken and mutton and beef dishes have been similar with bones to get through and the risk of getting nothing but bone. Anyway not a bad dinner.
We all retired to bed… A very hard bed! … Ready for another day of doing nothing as we all had rejected the possibility of a trip to the tip of India or a cookery course.