We arrived to Varkala, our first stop in the state of Kerala. It is a wee village on the coastline, the beach is clean (hurrah!), and the shops and restuarants are situated on a palm tree'd cliff overlooking the beach, with a little path running around the cliffs. The train trip there was one of the most scenic trips so far - rice paddy fields, palm trees as far as the eye can see and lovely mountains as a backdrop. Its been very aimed at tourists tho and there isn't an Indian face for miles aside from in the shops and restaurants. So, it was nice cos its quiet and theres tons of cool things like yoga classes, ayurvedic treatments, massages etc, a VERY nice beach (the best in india so far), where you can actually swim, lots of nice beach hut type of accomodation with hammocks and lovely seafood available everywhere. We swam pretty much twice every day and our bodies saw the sunlight for the first time (ouch) and ate good food and lazed about which was perfect and a great escape and HUGE difference to the total madness of India which we've experienced so far. No beggars, no dirt etc, which is probably done especially for the tourists, as its a first in India. I get the feeling we're entering a much more touristy hotspot area down this coastline. Especially with Goas beaches only a day or so trip North of here.