Dost To Dost 1

I haven't sat down to write forever.

Having Frankie, Phil and Ajuna here full time has put an end to all that.

The glorious bastards.

Right now I'm stretched out on my sleeper bed on yet another train, this time from Varanasi to Khajuraho. It's 9.30pm, Phil's lying down across the compartment from me, reading, and all the other bench beds around me are occupied by locals.

Frankie and Ajuna are gone already. They left this morning, before us. It's so sad. They're now in Delhi, both flying out over the next couple of days - Frankie back to Oz, and Ajuna to Sri Lanka, to work and carry on with her studies, online this time.

We've had the most amazing trip together, and Phil and I are still together for another week or so, we wanna explore some new parts of northern India, places that neither of us have ever been.

Back to Varkala

It seems like forever since they all arrived.

The morning after Frankie landed in Trivandrum, and while Ajuna slept, him and I went out for a traditional Keralan breakfast of putthu, a dish of steamed rice and coconut, served with coconut sambhar and curry.

Frankie feasting

They mix fermented rice with fresh desiccated coconut, then steam it in these cylindrical capsules. Sometimes they put dried fruit and nuts in there too - that's my fave.

Oh to be Wanted.

And then it was off to the airport for the third time in 2 days, to collect Phil. It was so amazing to see him again after all this time, and, yeah, it felt completely normal, like we hadn't seen each other for a couple of days or so.

So that my Ozish friends could ease into their Indian adventures a bit, I booked a house for us in Varkala, a beachside town about an hour north of the Keralan capital of Trivandrum. I visited the place a few days before to sort it all out.

It was a big house, about a 10 minute walk from a beautiful beach, and about the same distance from the small temple area that has a regular flow of Indian pilgrims.

Us and the pad.

I had a room out the back. It was plastered with psychedelic paintings, don't ask me how they knew about my brain in advance.

We frequented 2 beaches - the main beach at Varkala, and another much nicer and quieter one furthe south.

Varkala beach, from the cliffs.

Hangin' out on the main beach. Not a bikini in sight. Nor any kind of female bathing suit whatsoever, pretty much. The women were literally swimming in their sarees, and actually even some of the men were going in fully clothed, in their long shirts and long pants. St Tropez it definitely is not.

It was amazing to see these guys again. It feels like I saw them all just last week, but actually the last time was late in 2022. There's no distance whatsoever in good friendships is there.

We spent the next few days catching up, hangin' out, going out for food and drinks, chillin' on the beach, going for walks, visiting temples and other beaches, and exploring the larger town of Varkala, which is a couple of clicks up the road.

And of course, talking about all sorts of things, the whole time. When you haven't seen each for that long, and despite the fact that we occasionally chat on WhatsApp, there was always heaps and heaps to say. And to listen to.

South Indian diner. Amazingly good food. And cheap.

First brekky, at a little home up the road that offers food. The little pancakes are called appam, soft fermented rice pancakes you dip in delicious curry and coconut sambar.

Frankie fruit shopping

The larger town of Varkala

Inspires so much confidence

Local minibus

The beach below Cafe Sarwa, a much quieter beach south of the main beach, where everyone could get their kit off. Well, not all of it.

The Dodgy Brothers

Dad and Daughter. These guys hadn't seen each other for six months.

Ebony and Ivory

In step

Larger-than-life Kollywood superhero Vijay Talapathy. Kollywood is the massive Tamil film industry, the K comes from the Kodambakkan district of Chennai. Tamil films are hugely popular in Kerala, even though Keralans have their own film industry, in the Malayalam language, called, believe it or not, Mollywood.

Beautiful mosque. One great thing about Kerala, and about South India in general, is its religious tolerance. Hindus, Muslims and Christians live side by side, respect each other's belief systems, and even sometimes partake in each other's religious festivals.

Unfortunately in northern India it's not the same anymore. What used to be a relatively harmonious pluralist society, (besides a few notable exceptions), is now being hijacked by the ultra nationalist BJP political party, Modi's ruling national party, which has actively encouraged religious discrimination, particularly against Muslims, and has funded huge temple projects glorifying Hinduism and Hindu-nationalism, and neglecting to fund non-Hindu religious and social welfare projects.

Shiva and Shakti gettin' down

This guy was singing pretty good versions of some classical Brazilian bossa songs.

Don't ask

Real coffee. Keralan coffee is actually super delicious, when you can get it.

We did some pujas at the local temples. It was beautiful. The main temple is incredibly old, with rows of amazing stone sculptures of deities all over the place. No pics allowed though. Well, not inside the main part anyway.

The temple kund, where worshippers ritually bathe to purify themselves.

Sucking on a banana, as I prepare for the trauma of losing my long wispy locks to Frankie's unpredictable hair cutting scissors.

Even though I'd been feverish, snotty and weak for a few days before the crew arrived, I gradually recovered over those few days, after lots of resting, and after taking a course of lotions and potions from an Ayurvedic doctor in Trivandrum.

But the best balm, of course, was having those beautiful people around me.

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Go to Part 2