Divine Dehradun- the hills

View from the balcony of my room in the campus hostel of UPES, Dehradun. Evenings that follow rainy mornings see the lush green Himalayan foothills washed by the clouds. 

Kerala Bhraman- The First Touch

My initial plan was to pen down a travelogue- the first one of all my travel experiences till date. Each day of my trip, I kept notes of what I did and what I saw. After I returned from the trip, I typed my notes day by day; putting in expressions of my own in between the points and what finally stood has been published in this blog. Precisely, this is much more than a travelogue.   

Trivandrum...

What a delight! After the scorching summer weather in Vadodara where the temperature soars over 45^oC, a drop to 30^oC weather in Kerala with dry caressing summer sunlight on the shoulders will make any man agree with the expression. The white Trivandrum airport, simple like the Vadodara airport was glowing in the spotlight of the sun peeking through the monsoon clouds.

We left the airport on a paid taxi and embarked upon our Kerala Bhraman; my wish come true. The state has an assortment of sceneries. Few moments into the city, the car drove by the sea, its waves thrashing the rocks on the beach. Rough! It was a disappointment when we moved away from it and envisaged the people and their houses. Rows of small houses and shops on both sides of the road blooming along with the trees- I only know palm. Branches of bananas, freshly plucked from its tree hung outside the shops and the shop keepers sat on the steps in shirts and lungis. Painted on the walls were symbols of Congress and posters of the politicians- mustachioed and smiling. Later on, we saw grey clouds, like monstrous tsunami tides frozen in the sky backing few sky rise buildings of Trivandrum. The urban look was in play.  

In Kerala, the obvious pictures of fishes- fried, grilled float in mind. Yet, an hour into our journey en route to Varkala and there was no sign of fishes. That's fishy! 

Until when the urban landscape gradually disappeared and a familiar setting of trees and huts on both the sides appeared once again. Fishermen huts! Fishes! Nets drying in the sun outside every house and a fortune of silver fishes lying on them, drying. A couple of old women gestured us to buy some as we passed. But we had to go miles and as long as we were going to stay in Kerala, fishes were going to be a constant boon. The sea was back! The blue undulating surface behind the huts sent big waves crashing and spraying.

Varkala...

After a ninety minutes ride, we reached our destination. Well, not quite. As per the instructions we had received, we had landed on the helipad on the Varkala cliff. The sea in motion beyond. On the phone, the manager of the Varkala Marine Palace hotel told us to follow the half made narrow road straight down from the helipad. The car rode down the road up to a book store where the further road was out of view. It seemed like a drop. But the manager insisted to continue as there indeed was a road. 

The taxi drove further to what seemed like a frogs tongue. Steep and coiled. We held back in our seats and grasped our seat belts as the car rolled down the turn and entered into the hotel. A man was already there to receive us. After we had parked well inside the premises, (that's when our breath came back to us) two women carried our luggage to the booked room. We had opted a room on the first floor as that had a better view of the sea.

Upstairs, there were three rooms, some wooden chairs and a hammock. Our room was a luxury! Two beds. Or rather, two BEDS with mosquito nets above them. Wooden closets, a small pantry equipped with cups, glasses, tea bags, sugar, spoons and an electric kettle and a bathroom. The room had too many lights but it remained dim even after lighting them all. Everything was wooden. And it smelled of the beach.

Outside, the sky was pale and cloudy but it wasn’t raining. The hotel’s restaurant which was set in a huge verandah overlooked the Varkala beach. 

The Marine Palace restaurant

Wild and a dirty blue. The sand on the beach was moist and strewn with the pug marks of dogs and footprints of people. Beachcombers flooded the sea. Couples strolled by the beach as waves hit their feet and dragged them to the ocean. At a distance, men sat on plastic chairs, umbrella on their heads. A surfer who looked much like a Merman challenged the savage waves far in the sea. But he wasn’t a Merman. Alas!

We settled on the table closest to the beach and ordered a plate each of tuna fish fingers and fried calamari to start with and a cup of black tea to wash it down. I stepped down to a lower platform to take some pictures of the beach. It was getting dark. I wanted to catch the sunset which was impossible in the flooded sky.

Yet, I caught other subjects- dogs on the beach, lazing. Excited at the sight of a tourist dog, the dogs from every corner of the beach ran in for some entertainment.

Evening at Varkala

Tourist dog

The selfie birds on one side, fervently taking photos of themselves- deliberately spilling their grimaces over the motion of the sea. Couple on a log of wood with the backdrop of the shining sea. Palm trees swinging with the painted sky behind. Local families passing by beneath the verandah I stood on. Still, no sun. The sunset happened rather unceremoniously. Thanks to the clouds!

I rather sauntered on the beach with my father, armed with our own DSLR’s. There, we saw on both ends of the beach the Varkala cliff. Bleak yet beautiful. Red and bold like two hands holding a huge bowl filled by the sea to the brim. The cliff was dotted with palm trees and houses which were lit.

Varkala Cliff

Varkala Cliff

We explored a café beside our hotel; the Marina bay café was entertaining its guests. Its menu was an array of continental dishes and we decided to stop by for breakfast next day. Moving on, we arrived at a road that would take us back to where we had started. Unfortunately, it had been blocked to make way for a temple renovation. The road side had coconut sellers who welcomed us to try some coconut water, in their small and dark thatched huts. The hotels around were big and lurid; a complete snap out of the aura that the beach invented.

Moments later, my mother called up saying that a plate of fried tuna was waiting on our table and so, leaving our trail, we receded to our hotel. Marvelous! An evening by the beach. Good food and the sound of the waves gurgling in our brains. A Great Dane, supposedly kept to guard the hotel was a silent (perhaps dumb) canine who mostly snoozed on the restaurant floor besides sniffing guests. Although, the barking would have been a disaster, his unusual discipline worried us a bit.

Gradually it grew dark and the clouds which were grey all the way, changed into a nasty black and engulfed the sky. The rain was a downfall to all that pomp, but it got cooler and the lawn below our room along with the black deck chairs that hadn’t seen a soul in a long time were rinsed.

We relaxed on our chairs while digging our way through tuna fish cooked in banana leaves and calamari Thoran as the tides got closer and closer to the hotel. Only the foam stood out white from the rest of the ocean and the sky beyond which lay in a death like darkness.

Stay tuned for more...