Varkala, back to Chennai, and the end of Squad

Distance covered since last blog: 500km

(Unfortunately my camera is temporarily out of action, so this blog is photoless I am afraid)

As you can probably imagine, when you get to somewhere as chilled out and picturesque as Varkala, it isn’t easy to leave. We ended up staying for four days, and I pretty much did exactly the same thing on each of those days. It followed basically this pattern – wake up, breakfast noodles, internet café, a few beers, lunch noodles, a bit more cricket, an incredible sunset, a few more beers, then bed. 

On our second night, we did a cooking course one evening at one of the local restaurants. I started off absolutely hating it. Chopping onions, potatoes, chilies, garlic etc. The fact that Squad can chop vegetables really well and was always finished well in advance of myself only added to my rage. The actual cooking was better though, and I knocked up a tip top barracuda curry and vegetable biryani. Part of the experience was getting to eat your cooking for dinner, so we had a romantic table for two organised for us in the middle of a courtyard surrounded by 12 bungalows. We found this pretty amusing, and tucked into our dinner (which if I’m being honest, wasn’t very tasty). However, the main entertainment was only just arriving. A couple, who had obviously been on the beach all day, returned to their bungalow, midway through our second course. The girl began to rub moisturiser into her sun burnt boyfriend’s back – one thing led to another, and Squad and I were ‘forced’ to witness the couple having it off through the large gap in the curtains which they were clearly unaware of. It took the attention off the average food at least!

 Night three started off with Squad and I engaging in a Connect 4 tournament in our favourite bar. I don’t mind admitting when I’m beaten, and in this case, I was. I went down a humiliating 14-2. This was made even worse by the fact that various other travelers had joined our table, and seen me getting thrashed. The good news was that one of them invited us out to dinner, and a rather eclectic group (two Brits, a South Africa, two Dutch girls, an Aussie lad, and an American girl) when out to a little restaurant called ‘Jonny Cool’. The food was an amazing red snapper curry - worth the two and a half hours it took Jonny to cook it. 

17 hour train from Varkala back to Chennai the next day. Not a lot to add about that journey really. Apart from that fact that I was too cold and kept getting stared at by the bloke across from me.

The reason we went back to Chennai was for our second match of the World Cup – England vs West Indies, so apart from the match, we didn’t have much else to do. Just like the previous match we went to, this one was a thriller that went down to the wire. And once again England came out on top in a match that they seemed destined to lose! We hadn't eaten before the match, so afterwards we treated ourselves to some celebratory chicken noodles and chicken tandoori!

 
Unfortunately the next day I was struck down with my first illness of the tour, and was randomly sick after I woke up. We put this down to me drinking the tap water at the stadium the day before (I begrudged paying 20p for a cup of mineral water). Sadly this knocked me out of the day, so Squad went exploring the port and a(nother) Hindu temple. I was feeling better by dinner time though, and we went out for his 'last supper' at our favourite little local restaurant in Chennai. This brings me onto a more general point: I am quite getting into life in India:
 
1. Eating with my hands. At first I used quite a lot of cutlery, but in the last few days have spurned these rather restrictive Western tools in favour of my hand. Pour a big mound of rice onto your plate, cover it in curry, mix it all up with your hand, then just shovel it in!
 
2. Homeless Indians. They aren't as bad as I thought they were going to be, and in some cases can be quite friendly. There is an elderly man outside my current hotel who never fails to say good morning, and the street kids are lively also (especially the one who tried to pick pocket me the other day - the cheeky scamp!)
 
3. Bollywood/Indian pop music. It's upbeat, the music videos are funny and over the top, and the girls are hot. What else could you ask for?!

My next destination is Hampi, a small town about 400km north of Bangalore, where I have to return to change trains. In fact, I am typing this in Hampi, and let's just say that my trip has taken a few bad turns in the last 24 hours! Details of that to come...