India: Mumbai (again) and home

"The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor - they never overlap, do they?

See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?

Losing weight and looking like the poor."

- Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger)

There is another quote in Adiga's excellent book about how pale-skinned Westerners jump at the first opportunity to get to a beach and lie there for hours trying to turn brown, while brown-skinned Indians buy face-whitening creams and aspire to be pale.

As I was driven to Kochi airport yesterday morning - a route that took me along five-lane motorways, over huge bridges and next to oversized department stores - I was bombarded with billboard after billboard advertising everything from life insurance to cement, sari emporiums to surgical procedures ('Come to Dr Joy's Hospital: Keyhole Surgery; Painless Delivery!')

The common theme among these ads is the type of Indian person they use to sell these products. Nearly all were pale-skinned. Walking around India you see a thousand different shades of skin, but the large majority are darker than these people:

And it's not just on billboards. It's the same when you read magazines, watch TV shows and visit fashion stores. Pick up the Indian version of Vogue (which I did the other day, killing time before a train journey) and the Indian models all look caucasian; go into a high-end clothes shop like Diesel (which I did the other day, needing a blast of air conditioning) and the shop assistants are all pale-skinned.

So it's no surprise that a white-skinned Westerner walking through the streets of India gets a lot of attention. In areas off the beaten track, away from the tourist trail, you may be one of the first white people some of the kids have seen in the flesh. For adults, there is often surprise in their eyes when they clock you, and then the inevitable conversation starters will begin ('hey man, where you from?', 'you want buy shoes?', 'what is your good name?')

Arriving in Mumbai yesterday after an uneventful flight from Kochi...

...I checked into my hotel near the airport. The airport is about 1.5hrs from downtown - where the tourists go - and knowing I had less than 24hrs before my flight back to the UK I decided to stay nearby.

I asked reception if there were any sights or parks in the area and she suggested I spend the afternoon in a western-style mall, about 20 minutes away. I politely thanked her and decided to take a wander in the other direction. Spending my last day in India in a sanitised mall wasn't what I had in mind.

Within two minutes of leaving the hotel I was in a maelstrom of market life, Indian-style. Row upon row of traders selling anything you could possibly need lined the streets. And not just the streets; up steps, over flyovers, down alleyways. Everywhere you looked. It was a Sunday afternoon and it felt that half of Mumbai's 19 million population were on the street, shopping.

As always, I got lots of attention from the market traders, other shoppers and rickshaw drivers (I didn't see another white face all afternoon - except on billboards...) My brain was spinning with the sounds, the colours, the smells, and - after being talked into buying a case for my phone that I neither needed nor wanted - I decided a change of scene was in order and hopped in a rickshaw to Juhu Beach.

Juhu Beach is an area in north Mumbai that a) houses a beach and b) is home to some of Mumbai's richest and most famous celebs, including a few Bollywood icons. Maybe the Indian Rambo lives there?

I got to Juhu, walked onto the beach and was met by the sight of thousands of people milling about on the sand. The water is too polluted to swim, so families stroll around, eat ice cream and chat.

I was hoping to do the same, but was immediately surrounded by several child beggars - some with their pleading mothers in tow, some on their own. Most were semi-naked, all looked emaciated, eyes rolling vacantly in their sockets. I've encountered lots of beggars on this trip, but these kids were in a worse state than any others I'd seen.

Like bees to a honeypot, the kids surrounded the white man - the man in the adverts with the money - and wanted help. I gave my bottle of Sprite to one boy, some rupees to a couple of others, and then had to leave. People pulling at your trousers, arms, legs and hands can be a bit unnverving after a while and there seemed to be no end of kids coming over and wanting more. What can you do?

I walked away from the beach, past the swanky VIP clubs that look out over the water, past the designer stores that clothe the local glitterati and got a rickshaw back to the hotel.

For dinner, I went up to the roof terrace and - confronted with a menu of Indian dishes that I still, after 5 weeks out here, failed to recognise - asked for some help from the waiter. He called over a guy called Nikhil, whose father owned the hotel. Nikhil was a trained chef himself and after saying I wanted a mild curry with rice and naan, he ordered me exactly that. And it was great.

He sat with me for a while, his friend joined us. I got a refreshing ice tea on the house, promised to send my friends and family to his hotel/restaurant in the future, and he insisted I ate my first paan. Not the best picture quality but this was it:

A paan is a variety of spices, candy, nuts and other stuff wrapped in a betel nut leaf. It's put in the mouth and chewed slowly as a post-meal refresher. The famous sight of Indians spitting out red betel juice is the saliva produced from chewing paan. It was a strange experience - not something I'd rush back to chew in a hurry - but I'm glad I tried it and Nikhil seemed chuffed that I had joined him in a mini paan party.

And that was my last night in India. I flew back yesterday, watching Easy A and Animal Kingdom on the in-flight entertainment system and eating my final Indian dishes of paneer, chapatti and curry. I now have a couple of days in England before heading out to Colombia.

I suppose at this point I should succinctly summarise my five weeks in India. But it's almost impossible to be succinct about such a crazy, colourful, intense and eye-opening experience.

From my first day in Mumbai, when I saw a cow slowly strolling across a main road and almost causing a pile-up behind it, to defacating on the side of a road* at three in the morning during a Salmonella-induced nightmare of a bus journey to Hampi, to sharing good times with good people in Ooty and Varkala, it has been a pulsating journey.

Normally, returning from a trip like that to England would be depressing, but I'm only just over a month into six months travelling and the big trip is to come. I need to dump my old guide book, get a new one for SA, dump some clothes (who's stupid idea was it to take white T-shirts to one of the dirtiest countries in the world?!) and get some new ones. I fly out on Thursday, so the next post will probably be written from Bogota - unless the drug lords catch me first. Woo haa haa haa.

Before I go, one final pic from India:

*too much information...?

India: Kochi

So here I am in a Kochi internet cafe writing my blog, uploading pics to Flickr, killing mosquitos AND following Everton v Blackpool on the BBC website.

Who said us men couldn't multi-task?

I left Varkala yesterday morning after a quickfire 3hr sleep in the Om Shanthi guesthouse. A heavy night at the Chill Out bar (impromptu live music and cocktails) and then Rock n Roll (impromptu iPod music and cocktails) turned into a 6am finish on my last night.

Surprisingly hangover-less I made my way to the railway station for my final train journey of the trip. It turned out to be one of the better ones. I went by Sleeper Class which is a step up from Second Class and a step down from 3AC/2AC/1st. For a 3-4 hr journey a lack of AC is no problem, particularly when you spend most of your time in Kerala caked in sweat anyway.

On most of the (day) train journeys I've taken, I've ended up either bunched between people or on an aisle. This time I got a window seat for the journey north:

I got the iPod on, sunglasses down and enjoyed uninterrupted breeze, peace and amazing views as we skirted up the Keralan coast. You struggle to go five minutes in Kerala without seeing a coconut palm - and the novelty has worn off a bit - but it was still great to see huge forests of them, interspersed with tiny red-roofed villages and some vast waterways:

I arrived in Ernakalum mid-afternoon, got a rickshaw to the boat jetty, jostled in the ticket queue (my elbows are decidedly sharper now than when I left the UK...), bought a ticket to Fort Kochi for the obscenely cheap sum of 4p and boarded the boat for the short trip across the water:

Embarking at Kochi (I shall omit the 'Fort' part now through sheer laziness), I walked towards the main road with the throng and suddenly felt a man sidling up beside me. He spoke in hushed tones: 'looking for room, Sir?', 'clean room', 'balcony'. The way he kept glancing over my shoulder and to the left and right of us made me think I was being offered some hard drugs rather than a place to sleep the night.

After a few probing questions - 'is there a western, rather than squat, toilet?', 'does the shower emit water?' (I've learnt you always need to double-check these things) - I was sold. 500 rupees (about 7-8 quid) a night in a perfect location and, showing that first impressions often don't count, with my genial host Jerry.

Unfortunately Jerry had come to the port by motorbike. I proceeded to break my first rule of motorbike riding, namely riding without a crash helmet. I urged Jerry to take it slow as I gripped his shoulders tight and jumped on the back (with my backpack making balance more difficult). Jerry sped us off like a bullet, weaving in and out of the crazy rickshaw/motorbike/car/bus/lorry traffic combination that any previous visitor to India will vividly recall, without fondness.

By the way, the second - and final - rule of motorbike riding is Don't Get Killed. Seeing as I wrote this, and you're reading it, I clearly didn't break that rule and arrived at the homestay/guesthouse in one piece. A teensy bit rattled after my first time on a motorbike for 10-15 years, but in one piece.

I took a stroll down to the Chinese fishermen's nets which are a feature of Kochi:

And enjoyed a spectacular sunset off the headland:

With a rumbling stomach I headed off to dinner and broke my second rule of the day - Don't Eat Meat. I've been a pescatarian (ooh, check me out!) for about three weeks now - ever since I ate the chicken that ruined me in Gokarna. Southern India is full of great tasty vegetarian food, and fresh seafood, that not eating meat is something I hadn't missed.

So what made me order the chicken curry, I don't know. In the event, it was a decent (local Keralan) dish eaten in a lovely 16th century building. You'll be delighted to know that my bodily functions are functioning as bodily functions are meant to function, rather than when they're riddled with salmonella. The chicken was actually safe! Hurrah!

I got an early night, meaning I woke early today to get the most of my one full day in the town.

Kochi used to be one of the main ports on the trade routes between Africa and Asia and was first colonised by the Portugeezers before the Brits came along and took over. The architecture is fantastic - small, Iberian-style cottages and shops that now house a variety of guesthouses, cafes, restaurants, shops and art galleries:

I spent the morning watching cricket at the Parade Ground - a large dusty plain where kids and teenagers play football, hockey and, unsurprisingly, cricket. Luckily it was a Saturday, so a proper (junior) tournament was in play. I was sitting in the shade watching the first game (eight overs a side, cricket fans) and was soon surrounded by players and supporters of Kottayam, readying themselves for the next game.

I got chatting to a few, wished them luck, and then stayed on and watched them demolish the opposition in the second game. There are few better things to do in India than watch cricket, especially when you sit with a knowledgable local crowd.

The rest of the day was spent doing the sights, perusing the shops (if you know of a shop in Kochi that doesn't sell wooden-carved elephants, can you let me know? Thanks), listening to gunfire that accompanied the Saturday service at church and drinking lemon sodas. I finished off the day with a meal at a picturesque little Italian restaurant, kept company by the ubiquitous Indian lizard (and his mates):

Tomorrow morning I have a taxi to take me the 1.5hrs to the airport for my flight up to Mumbai. I've put more pics on Flickr (need to upgrade my account so more than 200 pics can be displayed there) and here are a few to add some colour to this post:

Teapots in Teapot Cafe



Kochi jail

STOP PRESS: EVERTON COME BACK FROM 2-3 DOWN TO WIN 5-3. GET IN!!

India: Varkala (2)

Five ingredients of a successful beach holiday:

1. A quality beach

As we know, beaches come in all shapes and sizes. Some have pebbles, some have seaweed, some have crabs and other creatures nibbling at your feet. Some have syringes, drink cans and other undesirables spoiling the surroundings. Varkala has none of these.

Varkala has almost a mile of warm smooth sand leading down to warm, wavy water. It's never so busy that you have to share your personal space; never so empty that you struggle to spot people you've met. In short, it's my ideal beach.

Because of the scorching heat, I've always left it to 3-4pm before I head down there - grabbing a couple of hours of sunbathing and splashing before an incredible sunset begins at around 6pm. And the water is great. People pay good money at Center Parcs to get waves like we have here. You have to stride out 10-20 metres and then the big waves start. People boogie-board, people dive through and over the waves.

The undercurrents are notoriously strong though, with the blue-shirted lifeguards constantly whistling out to people drifting off towards the red-flagged danger area. In fact, I was in the water earlier with a friend and we started to get pulled towards the Red Zone. The sand underfoot was like quicksand (feet disappearing unless you kept on the move) and the water was too strong. Luckily we managed to haul each other back to the shoreline and had a ticking off from the Indian David Hasselhoff.

And did I mention the beach was an achingly tiresome one whole minute from my front door? Which brings me on to...

2. A friendly guesthouse

There are well over 50 guesthouses in Varkala. I am staying at the best. Why the best? Firstly, the incredibly friendly, generous, inclusive and funny guesthouse owners Shiva and Madeleine are the perfect hosts. I've enjoyed some memorable evenings with them in their front garden, discussing travelling, music, Varkala, Hinduism, property, farting during yoga classes. Here's a pic of Shiva outside the guesthouse (with Madeleine just behind):

Last night Shiva - one of the most positive, interesting and resourceful people I've ever met - made us a meal of fresh calamari with rice, vegetables and salad. Easily one of the best things I've eaten out here.

As well as chill-time in the evenings, I've spent long parts of each day sitting on my veranda reading, listening to music and watching life ebb and flow around me (the house overlooks a pathway with people walking back and forth to the beach and Tibetan market). The veranda:

I've found during the various travels I have done that if you hit upon a really good spot, don't leave straight away. It may sound obvious, but often people dart around countries spending one day here, a couple of nights there. I've done that too, but chancing upon this guesthouse was a great find - and is one of the main reasons I've stayed here all week rather than moving on.

And on the subject of moving on...

3. A nice excursion

Kerala is famous for its backwaters, the cat's cradle of freshwater rivers and canals stretching from Kollam up to Kochi. I've spent a large part of the week with a Danish trio of gap yearers - Sven, Mette and Kristina. They had plans to do a day trip to the backwaters, invited me, and a plan was hatched.

Yesterday morning we met at the ungodly hour of 8am (I was beginning to forget what morning looked like) and got a taxi to Varkala train station, then a train to Kollam, then a rickshaw to the harbour. We were met by a posse of tour operators literally jostling me, and figuratively ripping the shirt off my back. I asked them to calm down, that we'd speak to each of them in turn, then proceeded to go into the first booth - spied a photo of Richard Branson on one of their cruises and thought that if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for us.

A negotiation later and we were in another rickshaw north. We were taken to a ferry port and waited its arrival. It was two boats tied together and carried vehicles and people big and small from the mainland to Munroe Island:

On Munroe Island our rickshaw took us to a small canoe holding area and we met our guide/puntsman for the day. I didn't get his name but during the course of the day his eccentricities reminded me of Alan Partridge. So for the purposes of this blog, this man's name is Alan:

Things started well. A slow meander through small canals, under coconut palms and beside lily ponds. Then Alan stopped the boat, we got out, he walked us a little while and showed us the various flora and fauna. Interesting enough.

However, as he stopped for the third, then the fourth time - each time asking us to get out, walk, and then pointing to a glorified shrub and him saying 'cashnew nut tree, yes?' to us with wide eyes - we began to get the giggles. What else do you say, except 'yes, nice cashew nut tree'?

So this went on for a while before we stopped for lunch at Alan's home. His wife and daughter laid on another amazing, memorable meal of about 8 different dishes: curries, rice, fish, pickles, chutneys, poppadoms, omelettes, banana and pecan dessert. Yum:

Afterwards, wife went and got the cow, milked it, and made us sweet chai with the freshest milk you can get.

A couple of hours more drifting (with the occasional punt from the now-exhausted Alan, and a bit of paddling from me) and we got back to the rickshaw for the journey back to Varkala.

All in all, a successful day with mad Alan (did I mention that he talked incessently into his mobile all day, and said 'good, beautiful place' approximately 50 times in 5 hours?) and the Danes.

4: Lively nightlife; friendly people

I have already mentioned the evening entertainment in a previous post, so won't go into more detail here except to say that each day I've met more and more people and now several times a day I end up bumping into familiar faces, sharing a drink or a chat and moving on. Another good reason to stay somewhere for a decent period of time. Friends Mette, Sven and myself following yesterday's lunch:

5: Tasty food

Again, this has been touched on before, but after 4 weeks of mainly southern Indian fare, it's been refreshing to have the choice of good pasta, fresh croissants, perfectly grilled fish and more. This evening, for my final evening meal in Varkala, I first chose a red snapper from the display:

And then ate it:

So that's Varkala. A place I've enjoyed more than I thought, that's given me a holiday-within-a-holiday at the end of my trip, and somewhere that'll be front of mind when I think back to my travels through India.

Tomorrow it's off to Kochi for two nights, before heading to Mumbai and then home. Some more pics from recent times:

Canoe in the backwaters

Coconut man, backwaters

Backwaters

Sari catwalk

Rickshaw

Shiva at work

Beach, Varkala

Shops, Varkala

India: Varkala (1)

On my first night in Varkala I had a drink and some Momos (tasty Tibetan dumplings) with a couple of Spaniards at my guesthouse. If you recall, I'd arrived that morning after a mammoth 21 hour trip from Ooty, eyes almost sealed with tiredness and a feeling of lethargy that was compounded by the searing heat of Kerala.

So when the beer was drank and the Momos eaten, it was 11pm and I was ready to hit the sack. However, the Spaniards - Rachel and her best mate Allejo (a Jesus doppelganger) - had other ideas and gnawed away at me to join them for more drinks along the cliff.

Now when you're travelling alone, as I am, you can't really afford to pass up opportunities of social interaction - especially in a country like India that has no hostel 'scene' (with shared dormitories and communal areas). Meeting people can be difficult here.

Suppressing the yawns and the stinging eyes, I took a 20 minute walk with them to the North Cliff. Varkala has a town centre, approx 2 km inland, but the tourists and backpackers come here for the beach and clifftop views/restaurants/bars/shops that sit above it:

We headed to the Rock n Roll bar - as the others had been there the night before - and ended up having a great night. After my illness-induced period of alcohol abstinence, I seem to be making up for lost time in Varkala at the moment. And obviously bars = drink = social interaction = fun = making friends.

After a long night chatting to lots of people of various nationalities, including the likes of Lorenzo (Swiss/Italian) and Andreas (Swedish)...

...and some time on the dancefloor with Allejo/Jesus and a strange guy from Stoke....

...I finally crashed at 5am and slept through my checkout time of 10.30am. Oops.

My second day was spent moving to my new guesthouse - this one is perfectly located on the Cliff and is run by a brilliant Indian/Canadian duo - and nursing my hangover with a combination of lemon soda, sweet coffee and fried eggs on toast.

Yesterday I took a walk along the coast to Black Beach:

I spent most of my hour there having a verbal fight with a pack of dogs who wanted to use the shade from my umbrella to sleep. The little bastards puppies wouldn't take no for an answer, so I got frustrated and went back to the normal beach - which had better sand and water anyway.

Apart from that, my time has mainly been spent reading (finished The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest; started The Dice Man), lying on the beach, getting my haircut by an expert back street barber, drinking copious amounts of water (it's incredibly humid here) and eating the hottest curry of my trip so far.

While eating that curry last night - face dripping with sweat, eyes watering, mouth hotter than the depths of hell - a girl on a moped entered my vision from the left, lurched joltingly forward (as she applied the accelarator instead of the brake) and smashed into a tree on the right. Not something you normally see during a quiet meal out.

I jumped up - as did half the restaurant - and helped pulled the bike off her, put her into the recovery position and got her water. Luckily her boyfriend was there and after half an hour she gingerly got to her feet and walked away. She wasn't wearing a helmet (no-one does out here), so one lucky girl.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one evening, I ended up having another great night at the Rock n Roll bar - and noticed that their dancefloor included a small area for pumping iron. And why not? Do a bit of dancing, some bench presses, maybe lift some dumbells in between sips of your Cuba Libre...



(apologies for blurred lens...)

So yes, another night on the tiles and another 5am finish meant today was mostly a write-off. But I still had time for a couple of hours on the beach with some Swedish folks I met here. And in a minute I'm off to go and have some grilled fresh fish. The life in Varkala is something I could get used to. 

Indian rail concessions

Killing time in the queue at Ooty railway station, I noticed a long list of 47 different categories of people who were eligible for some sort of discount on their train tickets in India. In among the usual stuff (students, OAPs etc) were a few unusual cases that we don't have in the UK. In no particular order, and using the exact wording...

-- kidney patients
-- persons transporting dead bodies
-- totally deaf and dumb patients (both afflictions together in the same person)
-- non-infectious leprosy patients
-- widows of policemen killed in action against terrorism or extremism
-- heart patients alone or with an escort from the station serving their place of residence to the station serving the hospital for heart surgery and return
-- widows of martyrs of Vianja in 1999

I'm not sure how some of these are proven (except for the dead body one - that would be fairly obvious). Maybe you get a special ID card saying 'I have leprosy, but don't worry - it's not infectious!' that you show to the guard.

In view of having no pictures to put in this blog post, I searched Google Images for 'dead body on train'. Lo and behold, the first image to come up was a picture from India (by the looks of it). For the easily offended, please look away now:

Fortunately I'm yet to encounter any dead bodies on trains. Yet.

Right. Back to normal, non-morbid stuff in the next post!

India: Ooty and to Varkala

India is steamy, dusty, noisy and busy. A few days in the mountains, and Ooty, came at just the right time for me. I wanted slightly cooler temparatures, a bit of chill time, and the opportunity to meet some fellow travellers - and I got them all.

On my second, and last, full day in the hill station I took an organised trek up into the mountains. There were about 20 of us on the trip - some Brits, a few Swiss, a couple of Germans, some Aussies. A good crowd.

We were taken by jeep 10 km down windy roads and began our day's walk. The morning route took us through small villages, eucalyptus forests and amazing tea plantations. I'd seen pictures of the tea plantations before - as most of us have (even if just on the packet of PG Tips) but to see them up close was something else. For as far as you could see there was what looked like thousands of green pin cushions bunched together on hillsides:

After 10km or so we stopped at a village for lunch. The village probably had ten or so buildings, and we were escorted to what was basically just a glorified shack. Appearances can deceive though, and the fantastic thali that the owner served up was one of the best feeds I've had so far in India. Lovely curry, spicy beetroot, a pakoda and moreish fluffy rice, accompanied by popadums and a good glass of chai. And all for about 60p. We got a nice little spot outside in the sunshine:

Lunch done, and we set out to tackle a mountain. A leisurely pace was set and we took a fun climb through bush and on rock to the summit, where the views were outstanding. A few dogs kept us company all the way up (including one with only three usable legs!) and became quite attached to me...

We chilled up there for a while before taking a slow walk back through more villages and plantations to our vehicles. Back in Ooty we arranged to meet up for beers in the evening, and I consumed my first drop of alcohol for about 2.5 weeks. Needless to say, it didn't take much to get a bit squiffy and we all had a good party in the garden of my guesthouse:

Yesterday was Mega Travel Day. I still had a waitlisted ticket for the Blue Mountain Railway and, fearing the worst (ie, it not turning into a confirmed ticket) I got to the station at midday to queue for an unreserved ticket. Two and a half hours later they opened the ticket counter and I was told my waitlisted ticket had become a confirmed ticket and I had a designated seat in First Class. Phew!

The route down through the mountains to Mettapuluyam was one of the few 'must do' plans I've had on this trip, and it didn't disappoint. Breathtaking scenery everywhere you looked, sheer drops below as we passed over rickety bridges and the chug-chug-chug of the steam engine up front made for one of the best train journeys I've ever been on.

There were farcical scenes at the end though. As darkness closed in, and the mozzies started to enter the carriages en masse, the steam engine conked out. We were 1km from our destination. It took another three aborted attempts to kick-start it before we finally crawled into Mettupuluyam about an hour late.

No harm done though, as we had plenty of time to hop across the tracks, buy a train ticket to Coimbatore and get the second train of the day. We bunched up nice and tight in cattle class for a thankfully speedy 45 minute journey south.

At Coimbatore, myself, a couple of gap year guys from Lincoln and a couple of Swedes went across the road from the station and had some dinner while we waited for the next train. One of the very few things I'll remember about Coimbatore was an incredibly insistent man selling those glow-in-the-dark magic stars that you put on bedroom ceilings. After the 15th time of saying 'no, I don't need a set of magic stars to decorate my guesthouse/train berth ceiling as I backpack through India', he gave up.

At 11pm my sleeper train to Trivandrum pulled in. I had a narrow 'bed' up by the ceiling with a flourescent light above my head and freezing A/C blasting in my face for 8 hours. Probably not the best night's sleep I've ever had.

Once in Trivandrum - in southern Kerala - I scuttled across the tracks again to (just) make my fourth and final train north to Varkala. The train was packed so I took a spot up in the luggage-rack-cum-bed thing:

By the time I got to Varkala I'd been on the go for 21 hours and was beginning to resemble Tom Hanks in Castaway. My white T-shirt had turned into a mixture of grey/orange and the rest of me wasn't faring much better! So the cold shower I had once I got to my guesthouse - a pleasant building tucked back away from the beach - was heavenly.

Varkala is absolutely steaming. I've been here a few hours and have probably lost half my body weight in sweat (he exaggerated), it's that hot. Because I plan to spend a few days here I wanted to find somewhere cheaper than my guesthouse I'm staying in tonight. I had a wander through the North Cliff area this afternoon and found a decent, if very basic, room for about 6 quid a night. I'll move there tomorrow. First impressions of the town are really good:

Tonight I'm going to have a long sleep and plan the next few days. The plan will probably consist of sitting on the beach, drinking coconut juice, reading and relaxing. It's a hard life!

There are more pics on Flickr (link in right-hand column).