Most of the men wear diapers for fucks sake, and I have seen them expose themselves at each other and I have noticed that all the teachers of girls wear the diapers. Makes you stop and think, right!
So I am still in Varkala, first it was because I was sick and then because the next day I was thrown out of two (yes, 2) guesthouses because they didnt believe that I had had food poisoning but I really did! And I was damned if I was going to let them chase me away. And then the fish is the best food Ive eaten since leaving Goa, I never thought I would say some thing like that but there, I have, the blue marlin/swordfish is especially tasty with an almost steaklike texture to it and very little 'fishiness'. I have stayed in 5 different guest houses in Varkala and on Saturday I am leaving for Kodaikenal.
The day before yesterday I set off with Eyal who also has a bike but it is hospitalized so he rode pillion, for the shpitz ('tip' or 'point') of India, Kunyakumari, where that night I watched the sun sink into the ocean on my right and that morning I got up at 5.45 so that I could watch the sun rise from the ocean on my left. The sunset/sunrise is a big thing with Indians and they come in droves to watch it. The sunset is watched from the beach by thousands but the sunrise only by those who dont have a hotel roof (we did), those who do have a roof gather there in their hundreds from about 6am, at about 6.45 they begin to leave but our sun only rose from behind the clouds at about 7.15, well worth waiting for. I also took a tour of the island memorial to some revered 'baba' but since I am pretty irreverant myself I didnt bother remebering his name. Kunyakamary is very pretty in a rundown, dirty sort of Indian way and for the life of me we couldnt find a decent eating place even though the town appears to have about 2000 active fishing boats!
On the way back we got lost and then hit a really deep pothole! 10 minutes later the steering begins to wobble and people to shout at us, we reach a town and by then the wobble is uncontrolable. Descending from the bike we find that about 8 of the spokes (shpitzim or slikim - what do you call them, I'm taking a census) on the rear wheel are broken - it must have started with the pothole and as the wheel weakened spoke after spoke broke, eventually 14 had to be replaced. Luckily (Its India, its the zen thing again) we were right next to a puncture-wallah who took the wheel off and sent it to the spoke-wallah by a ricksha-walla and 3 hours later (just twice the promised one and a half) we were on our way again only to promptly get lost again and then after finding the right road getting lost yet a third time! Okay, I'm not the best navigator ever! We did find a very nice air-conditioned restaurant (my first AC in India!) where I had a reasonably good chicken-liver and no food poisoning.
Eventually, about 9 hours after setting out we arrived back in Varkala - WHICH I AM LEAVING TOMORROW!!! It only took us 4 hours to get there. Mind you, on the way we saw an elephant being washed in a river by his mahout and when I stopped to take pictures he invited me to join them, some stupid 'Polish" prissiness prevented me from doing it, the water was dirty, I didnt have a change of clothes, and other stupid shit. Ten minutes later I was overcome with regret but by then it was too late. If I believed in anything I could say that they broken spokes were punishment for not joining the elephant, you know, karma and all that shit.
Thats all for now folks, I have to get back to my exceptional Kerala-grass of which I have a goodly supply. Ha!
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