We paid the price for our lavish beach lifestyle after Saturday as Sean massively burned and he told me I wasn't allowed to watch Spurs arsenal with him as my skin looked too similar to the red and white strip...

We went for an uncomfortable dinner at a restaurant we thought had always looked busy. As we were welcomed with free cocktails for their opening night we realised we must have misremembered that...A nice meal nonetheless but I felt a bit ill. Probably sunstroke. So we went back to our pad for an early night.

Sunday morning we were once again greeted by our host on the way to the beach. We call hi Mr Dhoti because he always wears a dhoti. Almost all south Indian men wear them so it's not a distinguishing feature but we can't remember his real name. I wanted Sean to wear his dhoti and they could be dhoti friends. He wasn't that interested. Because of our burns we went to a little cafe where we spent the morning as Sundays should be; with ice-cream coffees and the Sunday Hindu Times. When we had exhausted the Indian papers we thought we should get some exercise so went for a stroll. We got as far as our favourite lunch spot the Rock and Roll cafe where we stuffed our faces and played Guess Who and read the Lonely Planet magazine, Men's Health and more papers. Here we also met for the first time the man we later learned was named River. Exhausted from the days efforts we rewarded ourselves with ice-cream and cake in Little Tibet. At this point I thought was going to be sick so we decided to call it a day and head back for a shower. In the evening we had butter fish cooked in the tandoor at a restaurant before the football. Sean was ecstatic to finally catch a Spurs game on the TV.

At the football I was joined by two other people. One of which was a Gooner (which made the victory even sweeter) and the other was a sports journalist from France who travelled a lot with Christian Karimbeau. But they were both good lads and I enjoyed watching the game over a chilled Kingfisher.

Monday we again headed to Rock and Roll for lunch and spent some time avoiding the sun. Mad we know, turns out you can have too much of a good thing. And Billie the owner, who, as you can imagine, we had got to know well through our many visits, told us about the band that was playing the same night. So on our walk back we bumped into River who said he was also going and we should get there around 8 for dinner too as they were getting in a 6ft swordfish for the occasion. Of course we couldn't eat here again for the second time in one day, so we turned up at about eight and ordered a hefty slice of the swordfish... It was cooked in the tandoor and was absolutely beautiful. We chatted to a couple of Portuguese girls who were sat next to us and relaxed with a few more Kingfishers. The Ska Vengers are India's only ska band allegedly, and were actually really good. They soldiered on admirably through the half hour power cut, which is a regular occurrence along Varkala coast, and everyone joined in helping keep the beat. After they were finished it was the Ipod jukebox on the sound system so we had some cocktails and joined in the dancing to an eclectic mix of music.

Our last full day in Varkala on Tuesday - we were determined to leave on Wednesday as staying more than ten days we thought was little too excessive. We spent the morning on the beach and then took a stroll along the coast in the opposite direction to our previous explorations. It was really hot so we didn't venture far but it was nice to see some of the coast that wasn't crowded with tourism. We saw where the fishermen keep their boats and also a man washing a cow and its calf in the river. We spent some time on the cliff watching the cliff eagles and the waves and when we'd had enough we returned to the Rock and Roll for our final lunch. Dinner was more swordfish this time cooked in garlic and butter and was just as nice as the previous night. The Portuguese girls joined us after being too hung-over to catch their train out so we chatted again to them. Then we couldn't resist one last trip to R&R for pudding and Uno.

It was with some sadness that we said goodbye to Mr Dhoti and he was equally sad to say goodbye to us. Especially as some nights we had been his only tenants. Short rickshaw ride and we were back again sat in a train station about to catch a train to Alleppey.