Rob and Anna's travel adventure

Anna's entry:

Varkala is known for it's natural beauty, sensational cliffs, Arabian Sea and laid back pace. The community lives up on the cliffs among the coconut palm groves. Yes - we spent about a week in paradise. In the morning we would take a stroll along the cliffs surrounding the Arabian Sea, we would sit under the palm trees and watch local fishermen. Then we would have a traditional Keralan lunch, laze the afternoon up in the palm tree house over looking the sea while enjoying a fresh watermelon, take a swim in the ocean, and spend a leisurely evening in a clifftop restaurants enjoying the sunset over the Arabian Sea right in front of us while having a freshly prepared fish curry and coconut rice dinner. Cliff top views, waves, palm trees, ocean breeze, candles, stars, relaxing music on the background... We got very spoilt... In the U.S. a similar life style, or a vacation choice, would cost hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars a day. Here, in Varkala, we could enjoy it all for under $20!
Besides getting spoilt, we also had a cultural exposure here. One night we were walking by a temple and saw some people gathering. We were invited in by a local guy. He explained to us that every year a family sponsors a three day celebration, and we were cordially invited to join. So we did. We attended two traditional Keralan lunches, a punja ceremony, and attempted to attend an evening stage production, and Bollywood singing. I said "attempted" because the drama performance was in a Keralan dialect, and Bollywood singing was blasting from dozens of speakers, so it was a little too much to handle. But, it was fun. We rented a room from a local guy, it was nice and cheap, but it seemed like every house in Varkala beach was overtaken by ants. We wanted to avoid using DEET, so ants got very aquatinted with us, and felt quite comfortable sharing our bed, eating our food, and building a new home in Rob's computer pouch. In addition, on our last night, we discovered a big centipede, a leech, and a huge tropical cockroach all making cozy in our bathroom; we also had a baby gecko running on our ceiling, but those are very cute. For the record, the bathroom and room were very clean, and recently remodeled, but the tropics make any creature possible to see even in a hotel room. On our departure day from Varkala, bus drivers went on strike, so we had a nice (and hot) 4 km walk to the train station. We refuse to use the air polluting auto rickshaws, thus we've got used to be hauling our backpacks even in the hot tropical afternoon sun. Ahh, Varkala... We will think of you often....