Kovalam Beach
Late November 1995
Kovalam was a strange place. It had quite a pleasant, relaxed feel to it - although the wandering fruit and everything else sellers were their usual assertive, pestering selves. There were two beaches there with rocky headlands at each end and a sort of large rock hill just off the edge of the beach, on the water side, between them. In a way, they were the same beach, as there's continuous sand between the two, but they didn't look like the same beach and they didn't feel like it either.
There were similar strong currents, weird rips and regular drownings, like at Zipolite. And the place had a distinct feeling, for me anyway, of being related to Zipolite in some way. It faced a similar direction to Zipolite - approximately South - which may have something to do with it. It was nearly ten degrees closer to the equator, but it was almost as close as you could get, without being in the ocean, to being on the opposite side of the world. And strangely enough, like Zipolite, it was exactly half way between Britain and south eastern Australia - although that depends on where in Britain, and where in Australia, i suppose!
I had a sense of being not only three quarters of the way through the journey in time, but also of having come three quarters of the way round the world. I suddenly saw the very neat way this journey had laid itself out so far, without me being aware of what was happening. Three months after leaving Australia, i was in southern Mexico, approximately a quarter of the distance round the world - although i'd probably done a lot more than a quarter of the total travelling i was going to do. Six months out of Australia, i was in Britain, approximately half way round the world, and at the nine month mark, i found myself in southern India, three quarters of the way back to Australia.
Of course it had been a very tortuous and convoluted route, and nothing like as simple as that outline might suggest, but it was quite amazing that it had all fallen into place so exactly. I was somehow keeping pace with the cycle of the sun, as well as that of the moon. This all signified something important to me, but i was buggered if i knew what it was!
I was still suffering from that overwhelming feeling of "why am i here?" and "what am i going to do?" though, which took a bit of the edge off the pleasure of being there, back in the tropics at last, and being on a beach in a reasonably pleasant spot.
Kovalam was very touristy - although still on quite a low-level and manageable scale really. No mega evil concrete resorts as far as i could see. The second beach - the eastern one - was lined the whole way along with restaurants and a few other shops. The other beach had this stuff at both ends, but nothing in the middle. Behind the restaurants on the east beach there was a maze of narrow alleyways with guesthouses and restaurants and a few shops everywhere in a very jumbled, formless and quite inoffensive fashion.
What i found seriously lacking there was places to go that weren't restaurants. It was probably my warped british upbringing, but i found it very hard to meet people in situations where everyone was sitting at small tables. Somehow, inviting myself to pull up a chair and sit down at a table to talk to someone i didn't know was just too difficult for me to handle. It was pathetic, i knew, but i seriously lacked any kind of self-confidence in situations where i was pushing myself on people who i wasn't fully comfortable with - whether they might want my company or not.
The lack of any interesting loud music - and, usually, of any kind of music at all - was also a problem for me. A few places that didn't have the rigid restaurant structure of tables and chairs, and played good techno at a decent volume would have made my stay in Kovalam much more relaxing and enjoyable.
There was also a serious lack of interesting vegan food and, weirdly - as this was India, no dhal to be found anywhere.
However, i still found the place pleasant and i enjoyed being there. I had a good room, in a small quiet place, half a minute's walk from the beach. And it was cheap too. It was certainly a handy place to get to and recover from the trip from Europe and to adjust gently to the climate and the culture of India.
- - -
On Saturday evening i went to the arrack shop in the evening and bought half a litre of arrack. The shop was a very small place, barely bigger than a cupboard and there was a small crowd of seriously drunk men standing inside. A man sat behind a table in a back corner, which was actually just inside the door, with a sixty litre plastic container on the table, which he poured arrack from, through a tap on the side. I got some in an old plastic mineral water bottle.
It was pleasant tasting stuff - although it was pretty strong. They made it out of coconut in those parts apparently, although i wasn't sure what part of the plant they used - whether it was the nuts of the sap, or what. Anyway, i took it back to my room and had a small drink of it and then went out.
That evening i got talking to a couple of british people called Jenny and Larry and ended up getting seriously pissed with them. I had a few beers in the restaurant and then when that closed we went back to where they were staying and i grabbed the arrack on the way.
Larry and Jenny were planning to leave on Monday and get the train to Madras, on their way to the Andaman islands. This is a chain of small islands, under India's control, which are closer to Myanmar than they are to India. They more or less form a continuation of the chain of islands that make up Indonesia and they're not really all that far from the north end of Sumatra. Me and Nicki had looked at them as a possible route into India, but as far as we could tell, you couldn't get to them from anywhere other than mainland India.
They said they thought i should go with them and i began to consider it. The possibility of going to the Andamans hadn't even crossed my mind, but it did seem like a reasonable idea, specially in the face of a complete lack of any other ideas! Also the chance of having some travelling companions for a while was an attractive proposition. I didn't know, afterwards, when i'd decided to go along, but i thought it was sometime that night.
- - -
On Sunday, when i finally got out of bed and went down to the beach, there were a lot of police about, and a lot of the locals seemed edgy because of this. And with good cause too, apparently. The next day, Mohan, who worked where i was staying, told me they'd arrested quite a few people - i think it was ten or fifteen - and they'd be looking at twelve to fifteen years in jail! As far as i could tell, it was mainly people like restaurant owners who'd been selling drugs. Presumably they hadn't paid enough protection money that week or something. Maybe they'd all got together and refused to pay as much as the cops were demanding... Who knows.
I ended up heavily on the piss again that night with Larry and Jenny too. I didn't get home till about four in the morning.