I was struck by how friendly and relaxed everybody was here in Varkala, even people who had been tense and emotional when I first met them at the ashram only days earlier. A former roommate who had abandoned the ashram a day early in tears decided to spend the entire rest of her vacation at the beach town. She was smiling in the pink sunset, in her orange bikini, discussing the meaning of all the bright colors as we splashed in the waves the evening before. Then I met a young Frenchman who shared a mellow joint with me late at night rolled with cheap weed he had bought from the fishermen on the beach below, as we listened to the ocean and the wind in the palm trees. He wondered how I was so happy after I told him I used to be a little sad and anxious like he was, and I said it had to do with not caring what other people think about you anymore, something he would understand when he was older. He said he was beginning to understand that already.
Nevertheless I woke early in the morning, feeling it was time to move on. One possibility was to "commit myself" a little later than planned to another ashram where I would practice yoga for my remaining days in India but I had learned that the rules and regulations of ashram living were not for me. I like my freedom too much. The yoga, though, I thought, might be healthy after a few decadent days sitting on the beach or drinking milkshakes and nights in bars drinking beer and smoking. Even the vegetarian diet might be good to get the system going after too much fish. But the night before I started reading the guidebook about a place called Kanyakumari, which a couple I met on the cliff had told me was worth going to this time of year because you could watch the sun setting in one ocean as the full moon rose in another. An Indian friend in California had told me it was very special because it is where three oceans meet. An acquaintance from the Ashram said I should also visit Rameshwaram, a city at the edge of India atop a land bridge that reaches almost to Sri Lanka. In reading about all these places I also came across Madurai, home to the temple of the triple-breasted Goddess Meenakshi. I remembered seeing photographs of it by the friend who had first inspired me to go to Southern India, a blue tower of colorful Gods and creatures entwined in complicated myths and stories unknown to us Westerners but still fascinating, and much more like the India of my imagination than this pleasant beach town.
I was traveling light on this trip, only two shoulder bags and a stainless steel tiffen can for water that I had picked up at the ashram, so after checking out of the hotel before 7am and finding no autorickshaw waiting at the corner to take me to the train station I continued on to the Coffee Temple, a cliffside establishment boasting not only the best espresso in town but also the best view. To my surprise, it was already open, and reasonably busy given the general contented laziness of the place. Fortunately my favorite seat in the corner at the large table overlooking the beach was free, as I established by asking the middle aged couple sitting nearby. We started talking, and it turned out they were about to leave for Madurai in a taxi they had pre-booked for the day for this purpose as it was almost impossible to get there by train or bus. I asked if I could join them and they agreed, so after waiting for my breakfast of two soft-boiled eggs served on tropical time we walked over to their luxury hotel where their breakfast awaited them.
They were staying at the most magnificent hotel I had seen in Varkala, with a curved blue pool, spotless new cottages and rooms, and jack fruit trees growing between them. Over breakfast I learned that the woman was a travel writer, so they had been upgraded to the highest class of room available her. They had been professional travelers for many years, and we exchanged stories of traveling in the Baltics where some of my ancestors and some of the man's ancestors were from.
We continued our conversation in the taxi, where I learned that they each had a special hobby or talent - the woman could name all the birds, and the man could name all the different trees that we saw. Driving across the Western Ghats, we passed many villages where there were no signs in English or any indication that foreigners ever visited, and I was very happy to have seen places such as these since I had been wondering how to get off the limited and well-trodden tourist track to see some of the rest of India. There were birds which I learned were actually Brahminy kites and not eagles as I had thought. We passed through teak plantations, coming down to plains filled with rice, corn and sugar cane. There were trucks crazily loaded with rice-straw or hay, taking up the whole of the road, and tractors or oxen pulling carts of sugar cane.
The driver, being Keralan, and not having much English, was unable to read the road signs, but eventually we reached Madurai, after a hair-raising U-turn on the final bit of highway, and stopping to ask directions several times (I think at least he spoke Hindi).
