Wednesday 20 November 2013

Kovalem Beach, India

200kms south of Alleppy is Kovalam Beach ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kovalam )


Our hotel is located right on the beachfront. A stroll along the "promenade" with the usual collection of sellers reveals a even larger part of the town just around the small headland.

It is very much like a European style beach town. Everywhere is seafood eateries and tourists. The sand is turning to black sand and you can rent a beach chair to sit in the sun.

It is very much like a European style beach town. Everywhere is seafood eateries and tourists. The sand is turning to black sand and you can rent a beach chair to sit in the sun.


Early mornings, local fishermen set large cast nets then slowly pull them into shore teaming with an assortment of fish (generally small).  It attracts a lot of watchers with the odd participant in the net pulling.





Divers in small wooden canoes search around rocks off the headland and collect mussels for sale in local restaurants.  We are both astonished as to how the fishing is going to continue being sustainable given the methods.

Finding anywhere that has ice cold beer or drinks is a bit hard, but we finally settle on the local bar for our beers.  Check out the entry warnings.





 A really wonderful small local restaurant for our meals is only 100m away. We splurge on a seafood platter direct from the sea with tiger prawns, calamari, mussells, kingfish done in Kerala style banana leaf.  Cost about $A 30.00.  Our beers arrived in coffee cups - a bit unusual, until finally it is explained that the restaurant is not licensed, so you drink beer from coffee mugs & keep the bottle beneath the table.


All up it is very relaxing but the weather is very hot and humid with late afternoon showers.

Finally our India holiday is at an end and we head to the nearby Trivandrum Airport ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivandrum_International_Airport ) for the flight to Sri Lanka.


It's only here that we experience our most unpleasant experience with Indian officials, when both of us (the only foreigners on the flight) are singled out to have our carry-on bags searched.  Forced to unpack every item in our backpacks including all our cameras, videos, computers.

Held up for 15 minutes, the absolute rudeness of the officials, refused any explanations, refused any complaint process, this is the worst, disgusting experience in all our overseas travels. Thank goodness we arrived early at the airport.  This is one airport we would never recommend arriving or leaving from.



Flying with Sri Lanka Airlines ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SriLankan_Airlines ) is a wonderful experience - our flight is only 45 minutes, but we get a free breakfast and upmost courtesy.......

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