Hey we're in Varkala now!! it was a split decision on the train whether we went to Kovalam or Varkala, but Varkala was closer so.....

Best decision ever, as we had the most amazing time here..we had 2 weeks to just kick back before we left for Vietnam. We arrived in the rain (surprise suprise!!) it seemed we had followed the monsoon around India, and it continued torrential down pours for another week at least but it eased up every now and again! I think we were used to having soggy feet by now!

We originally stayed in a place called Jickys at the end of the beach but moved the next day to a place called the Raj resort, the bar in front was kicking and had the funniest manager called Baboo. Everyone knows Baboo and he certainly wants to know everyone else..apart from being a gossip and a matchmaker he thought that every female wanted him!!! and usually talked himself into believing that you actually claimed undying love for him! but he was harmless and definately a character!

We met a few other bods too along the way (Caroline, Kev, Luke, Simon, Ella, Ben and the annoying French bird!!) and keep in touch with a few of them still. Our nights were mostly filled up with drinking and playing s***head, although we did get into our hatha yoga. The instructor was lovely and he really helped us, we all sat in a stone hut outside on mats until it got dark (and we got attacked by mozzy's!), learning to relax and stretch! Me and Lis even had a reiki session, which if I'm honest, I didn't really get!!! it was a bit of a non-event really, my body felt quite loose afterwards and I felt really good in myself but didn't quite get into enough to do it again!

Instead of paying out loads on booze at the bars we used to take our own bottles and just order a sprite, which they were cool with, especially Baboo. But to get our own juice we had to buy it from the 'Government Liquor store' which was really funny. It was this wooden store where you had to go around the middle order your drink from one person, pay the next, then finally wrap it up in newspaper at the end!! seedy! Not sure what the laws wer on drinking as most bars offered drinks + usual extras but if the police came you had to pretend it was juice or something! That Actually happened to us once, but it was kool!

We went a massive roadtrip to Kanyakumari, which was at the tip of India, where 3 seas met, and at the right time of the year you could see the sun and moon setting and rising at the same time. There was 7 of us who went on motorbikes and mopeds. I went on the back of a enfield bullet which was a proper beast of a bike!!! it took us 5 hours to get thereand it actually looked a bit like Southend!!! anwyays we stayed for sunset and dinner then hit the road home which took about 6 hours..we were all freezing and dirty and tired when we got back...but it was a bloody good day!!