Road trip
Trip Start
Nov 27, 2005
1
18
41
Trip End
Feb 25, 2005
Varkala, India
Saturday, December 31, 2005
"Madame, are you leaving?" a few familiar faces asked with a slight frown as I trudged past with my backpack slung over both shoulders.
"No, just going for one day to Varkala," I replied with a smile. The answer morphed grief-stricken Indian faces to ones of extreme content, them knowing that I would return and no losses were to be accumulated unexpectedly.
After taking an 8 rupee bus ride and 10 rupee rickshaw ride, Stephanie and I arrived at the Trivandrum railway station. Note: the phrase "train station" often conjures up little more than confusion and chaos. one must request the "railway station" and then the rickshaw drivers readily understand the destination point, head wagging and all.
Boarding the train as 2nd Class passengers can be a cheap and pleasant experience (like when you get a seat), or it can be like being in your own personal hell and a nightmareish experience where you are squished like sardines packed and buried in wet sand--the latter unfortunately characterizing our ride from trivandrum to varkala. even though all windows in the train were open, and there were two open doors on either side of us, we could 1. barely feel the breeze and 2. we sweat out about 2 kilos of water each on that 40 minute ride. Body odor is still NOT my favorite perfume, although i did get quite used to it.
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Like suffocating fish out of water, we exited the train in Varkala and we were again swimming in the blue ocean, able to breath. and our subsequent hours of relaxation, of sitting and doing nothing besides letting the breeze blow through our hair, reading, watching the ocean currents, and sipping chai left us feeling like bodies of light floating in some metaphysical realm.
