Kovalam, with it's three beaches, has been a popular destination for beach goers since the 1930s. Lighthouse beach, where we stayed, is the southern most beach, with Hawa beach in the middle and Samudra beach in the north. About 15 km south of Kovalam, is the small beach town of Chowara. Here, the beach is made of fine white sand and is lined with cliffs. Chowara is also the home to renowned Ayurvedic doctor, Dr. Varghese Franklin.

Ayurveda is a type of medicine that is over 5 000 years old. It works on the physical, mental, and emotional well being by rectifying any imbalances in the five elements: space, air, earth, water, and fire. If they are all properly aligned, then you have a healthy human, but the imbalances will manifest themselves in different ailments. It takes 5 and a half years of training to qualify as an Ayurvedic doctor and to be able to prescribe herbal remedies and different therapies. Therapies can include massages, the use of different oils, a specific diet, etc. You can also receive treatment for certain body parts, as opposed to whole body treatments.

To reach Kovalam, we took an afternoon train from Alleppey to Trivandrum. According to the website, the train left the station at noon and so we hurried to get to the train station on time, only to find out that the train did not leave until 4 pm. There wasn't much to see around the train station so we bummed around and waited for 4 o'clock! The trip was supposed to last 3 hours, but, as is often the case, it lasted longer and we reached Trivandrum, our stop, around 8pm only to find that the streets surrounding the train station had been flooded because of recent heavy rains. We stood outside the train station for a while wondering what we should do. We finally concluded that we wouldn't get anywhere just standing there so we rolled up our pants and slowly started making our way through the flooded streets and sidewalks with the water reaching mid-calf and sometimes up to our knees. We had to get to the bus station to take a bus to Kovalam, but since we had not yet eaten, we stopped in what seemed like a nice restaurant for our Christmas eve dinner. The restaurant was anything but good, so we ate in a hurry and left to find the bus stop.

After walking and a little bit of searching, we finally made it to the bus stop and we were on our way. It was around 10 30pm when we finally made it to Kovalam, and we began our search for a room. The first few hotels were too expensive and the others did not have any room left. Since it was Christmas eve, many people were vacationing by the beach. We eventually found a room that suited our needs and our budget and settled in for the night.

The next morning, we woke up and headed straight for the beach. Though it was smaller and dirtier than Palolem beach in Goa, it was still very nice. The lounging chairs, however, we're much more expensive and there was no natural shade in the beach so we had no choice but to rent a parasol to provide us shade from the afternoon sun. Besides exploring our new destination and bargaining for lobster prices at the restaurants, we did not do much. That evening, since it was Christmas, we treated ourselves to a beer from the beer shop across the street from our hotel, which only sold one kind of beer, and to a lobster dinner.

The following days consisted of going to the beach, traveling to Chowara for Marco's Ayurvedic treatment and watching movies on tv in the evenings. Marco received a treatment for the tendinitis in his knee that has bothered him for several years. He had to go to see his therapist everyday during 6 days for about half an hour during which he received a treatment which resembled a mixture of massage therapy, physiotherapy and chiropractic therapy. So far, his treatment has been successful and he has not been bothered by his tendinitis.

Not much happens in Kovalam beyond 9 pm, so we often ate supper, took a small walk, and headed back to the hotel in time to catch the 9pm movie. We often explored around the main tourist area to try and find some cheaper restaurants. What we found were food stalls that all served extremely spicy chicken with an Indian bread called Parotta, or barota, depending on the restaurant. We did discover one small place that served an amazing grape milkshake for only 25 rupees (about 50 cents Canadian). We returned here a few times during our stay.

Though we did not intend to spend so much time in Kovalam, we ended up staying until the new year because of Marco's treatment and because we were told that there were big celebrations for the holiday. On new year's eve, we again wanted to eat a special supper and Marco really wanted to eat some prawns, so once again we went searching for the best price and bargaining with restaurant owners . We finally settled on one and ordered our seafood dinner, which was delicious. Afterwards, we headed to the beach to see what was going on and to wait for the fireworks that were supposed to happen around 11pm. We walked the length of the beach, sat and observed around us but eventually got bored of waiting around and decided to head back to our room. We watched Tangled, the 10 30 pm movie and began 2012 lying comfortably in bed watching a Disney cartoon and listening to the honks and screams of everyone outside. I have to say that Indians are very easily excited and while buses blasting loud music drove down the street, you could hear them screaming as if they were in a roller-coaster.

The day we left, as he was in the middle of a sentence, one of Marco's crowns fell out. He had gotten it less than two years ago and he was quite upset that it broke so soon. We kept the tooth and decided we would look for a dentist in the next major city.

We left Kovalam on January 4th, 2012 and headed to Kanyakumari, the true tip of India where the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean all meet.