Kovalam
I was in Kovalam for four days starting Monday. Actually it was a work related trip to Trivandrum. after reaching Trivandrum I found that all my colleagues (some Norwegians had their families too) were staying at Kovalam and commuting to Trivandrum every day. Since I did not want to be staying alone at Trivandrum, I decided to move to Kovalam too..
My last visit to Kovalam was a month back, when i had gone there for dinner (a beach side restaurant called Leo?) with my colleagues. Reaching there at half eight at night with a mixed bunch of indians, norwegians and mozambicans, it suddenly gave me a sense of displacement to the South of France or some other warm mediterannean beach in europe...the place full of gora tourists with two colleagues and me being the token indian faces..a row of beach side restaurants nestling cheek by jowl along the sea side with barely any indian dishes on the menu. all the restaurants were almost fully occupied by Europeans from Scandinavia, Italy, England, France? and a sprinkling of others including americans. to add to the effect, some of the restaurants even had names like cafe de la mer. the menu was mostly (local version of ) continental..with display of live lobsters and dead aquatic life in all shapes and sizes on tables outside, big fat fish, transparent squids, orangey red crabs, etc.. I left my food order to riddhi, a young indian woman in our group..i think she ordered vegetarian noodles and after waiting for the best part of an hour, a cross between spaghetti and noodles with an unrecognisable dressing was placed before us...i can only say i came away feeling slightly bemused..one of the norwegians had come to research 'upward social mobility among Indian tourists'..i asked him where are the Indian tourists...he assured me that they come earlier in the evenings..it still puzzles me why one would want to come thousands of miles from their place and re create the same in another place..i did ask my european friends this question and their answer was that it is much warmer here and therefore much nicer to tan and swim in the sea..such are the ways of human beings..the Indians buying 'fair and lovely' and hiding in the shade and the western tourists buying sun tan lotions and baking in the sun ( and the local enterpreneurs..read beachside shopkeepers.. laughing all the way to the bank by stocking both:-)
so here I was again in Kovalam a month later, but this time staying in one of the beach side hotels..well not exactly beach side..between the aforementioned beachside restaurants, there are small alleyways like the ones in some medieval european towns barely 3 feet wide leading inwards for a few hundred metres with these hotels (all called resorts) lined up on either side. i checked in at SURYA hotel? resort? i am not sure what it was called..which was about 150 feet down this alleyway.. our group had liked it during their previous stays..and was pleasantly surprised to find that the room rent was only Rs.350/- for a decent sized (spartan) room with a balcony, clean sheets on the two basic beds, a mirror with a plastic chair in front, a table with a lockable drawer and another table to keep your suitcase on, a really clean bathroom with 24 hours hot water ( which one doesnt really need at Kovalam) and a cold shower which can pour out a stream of water strong enough to clean away all the sand one gets covered with..i think the description is 'homely'..one young man who spoke good but heavily malayalm accented english served as the resident help during the day and housekeeper during the night, a young woman came in during the day to leisurely clean the room and iron our clothes at her leisure..i almost left behind a saree since she had it with her from the day after i reached there ..but i must say i had no complaints about the cleanliness of the place..it had new ceramic tiles everywhere..staircase, lobby, balcony, room, bathroom..everywhere..i was impressed by the linguistic capabilities of the day housekeeper ..several indian languages and english. Apparently november and december is high season in Kovalam and the same room costs 1000 rs a day then..the rates are lowered in January and stay that way till October. it starts raining in may and continues through september. March and April are really hot months..so January and February seem the best time to go..off season rates, cool mornings and evenings..Surya as well as its neighbour White House which appeared very similar in acco and rates were pure 'Lodges' and did not have any food service..but as I will write a little later in the food blog..all you need to do is to walk 10 to 500 metres from any of these places to find 'world food'..