A fishing village and a beautiful boat ride somewhere near Varkala...
Surrounding myself with dead animals is not my go-to activity. It took a lot of internal chatter to conclude that experiencing an early morning at a nearby fishing village would be an interesting and enlightening experience and not a morbid one. Debra warned us that the excessiveness of the daily catch and the disregard for sustainability would be shocking and it was. But I'm still glad I went. Village culture has to be experienced to be believed and even vaguely understood and we hadn't yet been let down by any of our outings with Debra.
We set off at my least favourite time of day - early. Myself, Tom, Debra and our wonderful new friends Elizabeth and Mo tuktuked our way over to the village. Our noses told us when we were getting close. We made our way onto the beach where hundreds of people were selling, buying or butchering fish.
The colour and spirit of the place was insane. Some hauled boats in and out of the water , while others carried huge metal crates full of fish on their heads. Some women sat nattering while others argued and waved their hands about. Crowds gathered around men who were auctioning off huge catches. Silver scales were scattered all over the sand. Tom wore a go-pro on his head as we walked around an caught some really insightful snapshots.
Once we had seen enough of the fishing village, we headed over to Golden Temple Island. To get there we took a lovely little boat which cruised peacefully along the backwaters. There were loads of different birds and the water was full of the most beautiful jellyfish.
The boat docked at a Temple Island where we were greeted by a nice man who showed us to the temple. We weren't allowed inside the colourful main temple that we arrived at first, but he led us around to other small temples. On the way he asked Elizabeth and I whether we all had clean bodies, to which we replied that we did. He then asked us whether we had clean minds and whether any of us had any mental problems. Once he was happy that we weren't going to contaminate the sacred area, he invited us to spend a few moments praying/meditating/concentrating while he repeated different mantras. At the end he put rose water on our faces.
Once we had boated back to the mainland, we headed to an awesome cafe. As local as they get and not a female in sight until we arrived. Between us we drank chai and nibbled on vade. En route back to Debra's, we stopped at a Anjengo Fort, an old English Fort established by the East Indian Company. Workers were digging up various parts of the ground while we were there, but it was still a nice and interesting place to walk around.
After our busy morning day being driven aroundin tuktuks and boats, we headed back for banana pancakes.
This is the awesome video that Tom made of our morning.