Varkala, our next tourist zone!

I’m not going to lie. As much as we enjoy the adventure and the unexpected interactions and experiences we’ve had in India in the many places we’ve been with zero foreign tourists, rolling into a town like Varkala that has all the Western comforts, beautiful beach, and tourist-friendly hotels, bars, and restaurants set along a scenic cliffwalk is enough to make us pause and relish the things we miss from home. It’s like a little mini vacation in our more adventurous overall journey.

But it does tire quickly… After two full rest days, we are growing bored of the cookie cutter expensive (relatively) but poorly-made tourist food, hawker stalls, and disillusioned tourists. I don’t think most of them realize that they aren’t seeing the real India at all, and it makes me sad to think that most of these people will go home to tell stories of “what India is like”, describing this ridiculous tourist trap. India as a whole has none of the touts, no one trying to rip you off, no Israeli food (duh!), and almost everything they sell at these stalls are for foreigners only.

It’s funny because in Europe we hated these places, but in India, because the overall experience in the country is so foreign, these stops at tourist-heavy towns are guilty pleasures, like little oases of refreshment for us. We can indulge in some of our favorite foods, drinks, and habits that we miss from home, while relaxing and planning our future path, before continuing back on our much more rewarding jaunt through the real India.

Leaving Kochi, we said our final goodbyes to our generous, loving, and helpful homestay hosts Linda and her husband.

There were dozens of Catholic churches on the way out of Kochi, and Steve got some great photos.

Our short day ended in Alleppey, with flooded streets after the recent rain showers. Trying to figure out how to cross one particularly large puddle, a man on a motorcycle started talking to us and invited us to check out his budget guesthouse. For a reasonable 1200 rupees, we got a basic room with an ocean view and a place to lock the bikes and dry our laundry! Perfect!

We didn’t realize the town is under construction as they are building a huge elevated highway, so the rest of this beach town was quite a disaster, but we found a decent place for dinner even if the former ocean view now consists of nothing but concrete and mud.

It started pouring during dinner so we hired an auto-rickshaw to go back the 1km to our hotel, saving us from getting completely soaked and caked with mud.

Our next day was a tiring 90km trudge through muddy roads, heavy traffic, and lots of smoke from burning garbage. My cold was still causing me grief, so it was a bit uncomfortable. But we found a perfect place to rest for two nights where I recovered fully in peace and quiet on Monroe Island, amidst the undeveloped backwaters. Our room at this quaint 3-room resort overlooked peaceful waterways where locals paddled canoes and kids played drums on tin roofs and we heard chirping birds and beautiful rhythmic chanting all day long. And the local Keralan food they served was good, and the server explained each dish and how to eat it. A nice couple from Germany was staying there also, having just finished a week-long ayuverdic treatment in Kovalam and looking to see more of India before returning home.

The resort offered a canoe ride through the backwaters and nearby lake, and we enjoyed a two and a half hour 1mph relaxing drift through the waterways in a canoe punted along by our friendly captain using a long stick.

Our next day of riding through a maze of tiny residential back alleys (thank God for GPS!) took us to Varkala, where we found a lovely hotel just steps from the cliff and the beach. The couple running the place are absolutely amazing, friendly, accommodating, and cook a mean breakfast (yummy masala omelet and banana pancakes)! Plus we have a balcony with private bike parking and sun to charge my solar panels (the power here is a bit iffy).

We took advantage of some more rest days (boy we are getting lazy!) to plan our route through Chennai for the next few weeks and consider some other options. Tomorrow we will head towards the much more touristy Kovalam, where we hope to get a taxi or bus ride to see a lion park! I love seeing big kitties in the wild so we hope to see a lion or two if we are lucky!

Finally the rainy, humid, cloudy, hazy weather seems to have gone, so we hope to have some nice cycling days coming up before we get to Tamil Nadu, where I understand we are cycling directly into their winter rainy season. Well, we’ve been super lucky avoiding rain all year, but I doubt our luck will hold up forever. I hope at least we get a little snow for Christmas! 😁