Varkala – the endless sea, part 2

“I think this is the Arabian Sea,” Dan said as we ate dinner on the beach. “The Arabian Sea!” I didn’t know what body of water this was, but–the Arabian Sea!? “Isn’t that where the Somali pirates operate?” Dan looked out at the water, frowning as if he might bring those pirate ships into focus. “Is it?” It’s amazing, really, what we don’t know about geography. “I think,” Dan said, pushing his food around on his plate, “that we’re a long way from Somalia.” But as soon as we got back to the room, we checked. Yes, the beautiful sea we were on the edge of is indeed the Arabian sea, but it’s over three thousand miles from Kerala to Somalia as the crow flies, which is, presumably, also as the pirate ship swims. This seems a safe enough distance. I decided not to worry about it. Despite a vanishingly small risk of pirates, we slept soundly. With a long drive ahead of us, we rose before the sun. In the ocean in front of our hotel–there was a boat!

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In fact, there were similar boats all up and down the coast as far as we could see.

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The boat landed…

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…and soon the familiar tug-of-war began again. And so we came to understand that the fishing activity we’d observed yesterday was the second catch of the day, and that these fishermen are hard at work even before dawn.

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Not everyone cared to watch. They’ve probably seen it all before.

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The fishermen were still hauling in their catch when it came time for us to go. And even today, weeks later, they probably still haul in a couple of catches a day–undisturbed by pirates.

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Varkala – the endless sea

I ended my trip but began the Indian blog posts, with Varanasi. Time to backtrack now, almost to the beginning. The first stop on the trip was in Kerala–Thiruvananthapuram (a name that I am inordinately fond of, having gone to great lengths to memorize it, but you can call it Trivandrum for short). I’m going to skip Thiruvananthapuram, but I may backtrack here later; I have some pretty neat pictures of a wonderful wooden palace two hours deep into Tamil Nadu but still part of Kerala. But somehow I sense you’re probably pretty tired of architectural wonders.

So let’s skip that for now. Let’s go to the beach.

We arrived early in Varkala, about 10:30 in the morning. We understood that our room would probably not be ready. This was fine. We were happy just to sit near the ocean with nothing to do.

We did not expect to find a serious game of tug-of-war going on just on the other side of our hotel. Wonderful, I thought, that the hotel was organizing games for the guests. But… there was something odd about this particular game. For one thing, where were the women? The children?

Varkala tug of war

Come to that, where were the tourists?

This was no game. This was, it turned out, the local fishermen earning their daily keep. There were two heavy ropes, each being pulled by some ten or twelve men.

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As the rope came in, the group on the rock wall moved closer and closer to the one on the beach.

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They coiled the rope behind them. At the end of the rope was the end of a very large net, and this too they gathered behind them.

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Now both groups, close together, pulled in earnest.

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A man riding a kind of a–surfboard?–helped guide in the far edge of the net.

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As the net was pulled in, the catch became visible–an abundance of small silver fish.

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The fishermen scooped up most of the fish into a basket.

basket of fish in Varkala

There ensued a heated discussion with a man who, like us tourists, had been only a bystander until this moment. Now emotions ran high.

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You didn’t have to speak Malayam to understand that a negotiation was in process. The buyer turned in disgust to leave. One of the fishermen ran after him. More discussion, calmer this time. A price was agreed. Two men took the basket, following the buyer off the beach. The fishermen divided up their gear and the remaining fish. The catch of the day had been disposed of.

Dan and I checked into our room and then went for a walk along the beach. If they could photoshop reality, they would make it look something like this.

Varkala beach looking north Varkala beach looking south

The sun, as it usually does, set.

sunset in Varkala

We stopped along the way for a drink (a surprisingly good mojito).

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And then later, we had dinner by candlelight on the beach.

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