Beach Therapy

It's hot and humid. Heck, this is the tropics. I'm just 7 degrees north if the equator. Actually all of Kerala lies between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer so the landscape all over the state is lush with expanses of palm groves and banana plantations and other trees and shrubs. Sweat pours down my body and it's impossible to do much of anything during the day. Well, a massage with Ayurvedic oils can cool you down! btw it's because of the tropical climate that Ayurvedic plants grow abundantly here and this is why you can't walk for more than tow minutes without passing an Ayurvedic massage place.

Well, I’m beginning to feel guilty about my indulgent days in Varkala. It’s been so peaceful. You can take things at a leisurely pace, read the paper, saunter along the beach, sip exquisite masala tea, eat excellent food.

Some highlights of my days here:
• Meeting interesting travelers, mostly from various parts of Europe. Often at a café or restaurant when people see me alone, they’ll strike up a conversation with me. I’ve met people who have come to India to genuinely learn about the country. Others come here for spiritual meaning. I’ve enjoyed interacting with these folks who have a deep respect for what India and Indians offer. Then there are those who are in Varkala for the resort experience. These people pretend to be in “India”, fool themselves into thinking they are experiencing Indian culture, but demand western conveniences. I find this group quite repugnant. They refuse to respect the local culture, wear skimpy beach clothes and hang out at bars, are loud, downing beer after beer, and expect to be able to watch the ball games. I think, wtf are doing here? Go to bloody Majorca!
• Wading in the sea when the sun is low in the sky and about to set. Such a peaceful time, the water so warm and the sky just gorgeous. What a delight to sit on the sand and let the water wash over you as you watch the sun sink into the horizon.
• Getting a facial at a shack on the beach, a ceiling fan keeping me cool as a woman expertly rubs various creams into my face. It’s all very quiet except for the sound of the surf.
• Dining under the stars and among the palm trees. In Varkala all restaurants serve their food outdoors – obviously – the evenings are so balmy and the sea is just below the cliff. Unlike in the west at popular resort places where you expect food of mediocre quality, here in Varkala high standards are maintained. Every meal is lovingly prepared by an experienced chef. Everything is made to order and this means you usually have to wait close to an hour for your meal. The pace here is so laidback and when customers get impatient the waiters give them funny looks as if to say, “What’s the hurry?” So, needless to say, apart from an atrocious croissant, I have had excellent meals. Seafood is big here. Fisherman bring back their catch and the restaurants display the fish on refrigerated tables at the entrance. People point to the fish they want and this is usually then cooked in a Tandoori oven. You can see these ovens in their outdoor kitchens. It’s great to watch how they skewer whatever they’re cooking, coating the stuff in spices and then sticking the skewer into the oven. I had tandoori veggies one evening and a naan. Wow! Delicious, and definitely the best naan bread I’ve ever had. I have enjoyed the biryanis in Kerala. These are served with a top and bottom layer of aromatic rice with roasted cashews and raisins, and between the rice layers are vegetables cooked in a coconut based flavorful, red sauce. Really a special meal.
• Live Indian music. In the evenings, after dinner, I stroll out to this café that has classical music in the evenings. I sip papaya juice and enjoy the music – stars above me, the waves of the Indian ocean lapping onto the shore behind me. Splendid.


In my daily interactions with the locals I find I’m constantly struck by their gentleness and warmth. I’m reminded of the term Ubuntu used in South Africa to describe the innate loving, giving nature of the Africans of Southern Africa. I feel that same Ubuntu spirit around me in Kerala – from the waiters at restaurants, to the autorick drivers, to the guy that brings me my bucket of hot water in the evenings to the office staff at my resort. Being Indian and foreign puts me in a unique position as a traveler in India. The locals are often curious and warm toward me. I’m rarely alone in India. I’m either dining or traveling with other tourists or with some young Indian lady – usually college educated – who wants to know about western life. So, most of the time I’m okay.

However, I have had my fair share of ANNOYING INDIAN MEN! Maybe one in ten fall into this category, but this means that everyday I encounter one or two men who have unfortunately colored my overall experience. Sometimes I find the men quite loathsome. I’m not alone in this opinion. I read the papers here fairly frequently and just about in every paper the editorial pages carry angry articles about Indian men bothering women – both local women and tourists. In my first days, if someone yelled out a greeting when I passed them, I’d greet them back. But I quickly learned that this is an invitation for trouble. As soon as they see you are alone, they attach themselves to you and ask you nosy questions. It’s shocking that they think they have the right to just invade your privacy because you were too polite to ignore their greeting. Even when I become curt they persist. In order to get rid of them I I’d have to escape into a shop and linger for a while, pretending I want to make a purchase.
Indian women are never in public places by themselves. This may be because they feel vulnerable in this society. So when I saunter around I get noticed. I’m an Indian woman solo, and in nontraditional clothes. Easy prey. Now when I get greeted I scowl and turn away. There were a few times in Cochin when I misjudged, and this has made me even harder. A well dressed young man with fluent English, saw me hesitate as I tried to cross a street and immediately knew I was a foreigner. He guided me across and then started a conversation. I politely responded. Not even five minutes later he tells me there’s a wonderful rooftop restaurant in the city and would I like to have dinner with him. Jesus! I said no thanks, and he respected that and walked away. I felt a little guilty, thinking maybe he was just honestly interested in talking to an Indian woman raised in the west and after all, what could he do to me in a public setting. But, I know that I’ll always say no in these situations. I’m not willing to take chances given the stories I hear.

So, what is it about Indian men? I’ve traveled a bit without Daryl to many places around the world and I’ve never felt harassed as I do here in India. It’s got to have something to do with how conservative this society is. I could be wrong here, but from conversations I’ve had with locals, it is rare for young Indian men and women to go out on dates. My impression is that many people are virgins until they get married. So, is it sexual repression? Or is it the fact that Indian society is so different that the men just have no clue about etiquette. And again , before you think it’s me seeing it from a western perspective, the behavior of men in Indian society is a topical issue. I read about a couple of young women committing suicide because of the shame they felt from male harassment. So, it’s definitely a real probem.


What to make of Indian society? As I travel from city to city, each with its own charm and issues, there are certain phenomena I find common to all the places I see. It’s amazing that even though I know many people who’d been to India and related their experiences to me, there are things I wasn’t expecting. For example, the way women dress. In Bangalore women were quite varied in how they dressed. Some were in traditional Indian clothes and others were in various western styles – from simple jeans and tops to more trendy designer clothes to the more sort of experimental, almost hippie type stuff. I didn’t bat an eye at the way women were dressed in Bangalore, and assumed it would be the same everywhere in India. But when I left the city and got to Mysore I was immediately struck by the fact that all the women were either in saris or those long cotton or silk dresses with matching pants and scarves. I thought well, maybe Mysore is just one of those conservative cities. I was wrong. In every city I’ve been since leaving Bangalore women were dressed traditionally. This was slightly less so in Cochin. I had imagined India to be a country that was rapidly modernizing and that implied people – a certain percentage, surely - would break from tradition. I mean, everywhere else in the world, including China and Malaysia, the way people dress is essentially not much different to what we see in the west. And let’s not forget, I know many Indians around the world – in South Africa, in England, and in the US, and nobody dresses traditionally – not even the older generations! So, yes, it definitely came as a surprise to me to find women of all ages in conservative Indian clothes. The women always look elegant, adorned with jewelry, and wear their long hair in neat hairstyles. They look quite exotic. It is wonderful to visit a country and find uniqueness. Who wants the whole world to be dressed the same way?
But Indian women are not outgoing and independent. In fact professional women who have to leave their parent's home for work live in government establishments called "Working women's Hostels." These exist in all major cities I've been in. Young, working single people do not live on their own.

In South India, a significant percentage of men wear dhotis. In Cochin most of the men were in western clothes, but as soon as you get out of the city and into the smaller towns and villages, men are in dhotis.

Here, in Varkala, I walked out on the beach away from the resort section and found a beach crowded with locals (it was Sunday late afternoon). Believe it or not, the women were all in their regular clothes! Some were in the water with their saris or pants rolled up! I couldn’t believe it. Actually, here’s something strange. Along the cliff promenade where all the shops are, you would expect to find stores with stuff beachgoers would need, like swim suits and sarongs. Now I’m in need of a new swimsuit and I haven’t been able to find any store in Varkala that sells swimsuits!

Well, I now have two more weeks in India. I'm almost at the bottom of India and tomorrow I'll leave Kerala and head to India's land's end - Kanyakumari. There I will begin my tour of the temples of Tamil Nadu.