Varkala Cliff House Beach Resort

January 2007 

Sitting on our cool, palm-shaded balcony relaxing, reading, writing and listening to the steady rhythm of the waves breaking on the beach below us, and the distant sounds of birds, and people going about their daily activities (almost all of which occur out-of-doors).  We’re here in “Varkala Cliff,” on the southwest coast of India, not far from the ‘tip.’  It’s a little oasis of (relative) cleanliness, quiet, fresh sea air and great food.  It’s also tourist trap, of course, but much smaller and more relaxed than Goa, with its huge hotels and package tours.  

“Varkala cliff” gets its name from the 100’ high red rock cliff that lines the beach for about five kilometers of the coast here.  It's the only place in southern Kerala where cliffs are found adjacent to the Arabian Sea.  They’re unusual enough and special enough to have been declared a ‘National Monument. 

The tourist development on the cliff consists of a fairly narrow strip of mostly family-owned 4-12 room lodgings strung out along the top of the cliff, all on the landward side of a stone walk-way that runs almost all of the way along the cliff top.

 

The wonderful thing is that we can sit in any one of the restaurants or cafes, some of which have second stories, and enjoy an unobstructed view of the ocean.  There are usually a few small fishing boats or rafts out there during the day, but at night there are enough boats, with bright lights, to make it look like there’s another street out there, or an airport runway.

 

The “hotel” side of the walkway is also where colourful tourist shops, selling jewelry, clothes, shoes, books and, luckily for us, basics such as bottled water and T.P. can be found.  And there’s a plethora of excellent restaurants serving an incredible array of foods – everything from pizza to Thai and Tibetan food to French pastries and American coffee, and of course a wide range of local Indian specialties.  

 

But the specialty here is fish, and every night we stroll down the seawalk to check out the fresh catch – tuna, barracuda, butter fish, sword fish, snapper, bright red grouper, prawns, crabs and calamari – all of which are artistically arranged on large stainless steel tables.  Sometimes there’s a few ices cubes melting quickly in the 80°+ heat (even at night), but generally the fish are just out there, and it’s buyer beware, in terms of freshness and quality.  

We’ve had all of the different types of fish (except swordfish and lobster which are both very expensive) in almost all of the different ways, from very plain, fried in butter and garlic, to roasted with onions, garlic, tomato and spices in a banana leaf, to swimming in an eye-wateringly hot curry masala.  We often order “sizzlers.”  These are dishes of meat, fish or pure veg, cooked in a cabbage leaf, and brought still sizzling, to your table.  

There were a couple of great pizza places, with wood fired ovens, and one of our favourite tandoori places where the naans were cooked in a huge dome-shaped tandoori oven.  They are literally slapped up against the inside, curved top-sides of the oven, and retrieved just before they fall into the flames.  It’s quite an art.  The kitchens of most of these places are about as rudimentary as one could imagine, which makes the quality of the meals the ‘chefs’ produce just that much more amazing. 

 

The Beach

 

Several steep flights of stairs and rocky pathways lead from the cliff down to the beach, which in the “main cliff area” is a wide expanse of lovely white sand, and in other places little pockets of white or black sand or large red and black rocks.  The beaches here are cleaned every morning by state staff.  The cleaners are all women, using rakes, litter grabbers and their bare hands (no gloves) to remove the detritus left by yesterday’s tourists.  

As there are no locals using the beach for fish cleaning or as a toilet, the beaches here are, unlike those in so many other places we’ve been, clean and inviting.  There are even umbrella and deck-chair wallas (business people) who rent these items by the day, or half day.  The umbrellas are essential as the sun, and its reflection on sand and sea, is blistering.  Daytime temperatures range between 84-90° in the shade.  Most days there’s a somewhat ‘cooling’ breeze, and once in a while a light haze provides a little respite from the heat and glare.

 

There are no local hawkers or gawkers on the beach, thanks to the 3 or 4 policemen who maintain a vigilant eye.  So western tourists, and in particular western women, can wear skimpy swimsuits without being harassed by locals who are unaccustomed to seeing so much of a woman’s body.  Indian women, including the tourists who come to Varkala, generally continue to wear their saris at the beach, and only wade far enough into the water to get their feet wet – or maybe up as far as their shins – if they dare!

 

One of many 'back roads' in Varkala

We haven’t spent much time on the beach, and have only been swimming a few times, and then mostly late in the day.  

We prefer to spend our time walking and exploring the little lanes and paths behind the hotels, which although not far from the more popular tourist haunts near the beach, are almost always ‘tourist-free’ zones.  

 

It’s here we are able to meet and chat with local Varkalites.  

The friendliness and helpfulness of the local people, here as elsewhere, has been a hallmark of our trip so far.  

It’s a wonderful and very endearing characteristic – we feel welcome wherever we go.

 

Bollywood Dancing at the ‘Funky Art Café’

 

One of the highlights of our time in Varkala has been the live performances of traditionial and Bollywood dancing at the ‘Funky Art Café,’ one of the most popular restaurants on “The Cliff.” 

The performances we’ve seen started with two traditional trained female dancers, in somewhat scaled down traditional costumes (they weren’t dripping with gold jewelry), who performed first a short traditional dance, and then, much to our enjoyment, performed a modified version of a traditional dance movements to modern disco music, creating an entirely new art form.  Although we’ve seen a number of traditional dances, this adaptation was fantastic – a very creative, and very beautiful, fusion of old and new.  

 

Next in the program came the Bollywood dancers, almost all male, and dressed in bright shiny satin shirts and pants with lots of glitter and gold.  If you’ve ever seen a Bollywood movie, and thought that the dance numbers were artificially speeded up after being shot (how could anyone dance that fast?), we can now say without hesitation that the dancers really do move that fast.  

Their energy and dynamism is breath-taking.  Again, as with the traditional Indian dances, most of the dances have a story.  The story is almost always romantic – lost love, found love, lost love again, found love again, etc. etc. – but that’s often lost on us.  We just enjoy the energy, colour and exuberance of the dancers.  They are clearly having a very good time!  From time to time a dwarf who works at the restaurant joins in, shaking his booty, as it were, and unwrapping his head scarf and waving it about with one hand as he puffs on his cigarette with the other, grinning broadly all the while.  

 

In between the Bollywood dances there are some great, and very cute, child Bollywood-ish dancers – one young lad in particular is very talented and thoroughly enjoys playing to the crowd.  

But perhaps the most amazing and spell-binding act is performed by two young (20-ish) men.  These lads wear loose, shiny, yellow pantaloons, but are bare-chested and bare-footed.  Their act is a combination of free-flowing yoga and acrobatics, performed in very close contact, at times intertwined or interlocked, even as they climb up to and dangle from a trapeze.  The act is set to music, and beautifully choreographed.  It’s definitely homo-erotic, and held all of the gay guys in the audience spell-bound.  But it’s unlikely the young men themselves are homosexuals.  Close contact among men here is common, and can be seen everywhere.  Guys often walk holding hands, or with their arms around one another.  Close contact between men and women, on the other hand, is seldom seen, and not well-accepted (indeed frowned upon).  Definitely a different world from the one we know!

 

For more information on Varkala go to:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varkala