A shack by the beach

Looking north from the end of the lane

My room at Asinmomo

I planned a week in Edava, 5km north of Varkala. without any specific agenda. I wasn’t interested in mixing with the international back-packer crowd, and I certainly didn’t want to mingle in with the middle-class European families looking for a different Christmas climate. 

I just wanted a cheap, clean room, WiFi and some simple food. Asinmomo “homestay” was just what I was looking for. 

Tropical workspace

The “homestay” idea is all over India. 

People have an annex they rent out to guests, or a spare bedroom. At Asinmomo, the family lives in accommodation on the flat roof, while the ground floor comprises four bedrooms, each with a simple, en-suite bathroom. 

The kitchen is a separate building a few yards away, there’s a wide “sit-out” verandah and, with the addition of broadband access and WiFi, the whole creates a simple, money-generating operation.

St Augustine of Hippo

I have hardly moved from the verandah for the past 5 days. I have resurrected the writing I did over a year ago, and started to make some sense of it. 

I know there’s lots of good stuff in there, but it still lacks structure and I have discovered that some of what I thought were my new and revolutionary ideas, were voiced by St Augustine  in the 4^th century. 

I wonder if Augustine had the same sense of deflation if he discovered some earlier writer had written something rather similar, centuries earlier.

When I haven’t been researching and writing, I have been extremely lazy. 

I have taken breaks to play some infernal version of Solitaire on the laptop, I have looked up train and bus timetables and I have booked accommodation for my final few days in January. 

I designed a Christmas card and emailed it to friends and family, and I have enjoyed the unfamiliar luxury of an afternoon nap.

Mattindia gave me a physical detox; Edava has given me a mental detox. I should be just about right to start at the monastery / ashram on Monday.

A mild evening, looking out to sea

Letting the train take the strain

I shall return to Mattindia at the end of my stay, but I am now off for a week at the coast. I wasn’t bothered about lying on a beach; I just wanted peace and quiet to write and rest. It’s a 3-hour train journey to Varkala and I had no idea what to expect. With a 6am start, I needed to be up at 4.30 to take the auto-rickshaw to the station, 5km away, and so it was that I stood at the roadside in the humid night air, hoping the rickshaw driver had not over-slept.

20-0dd coaches and standing-room only

He hadn't, and he greeted me cheerfully. He had taken my much-loved Clarks sandals to be re-soled, and will have them for me when I return to Mattindia next month. The total cost for the cobbler's work and his job in driving around would be £4.92 - so I agreed happily. I was not the first passenger to arrive at the station, and I chatted to a school teacher who was waiting for the same train and continuing further, to a course in Trivandrum. Over the next half-hour more passengers arrived, in an alarming flow, until there were at least a hundred and more on the platform of this remote station in the middle of nowhere.

The ticket office opened and I bought my ticket for the 142 km,(88 miles,) 3-hour journey to Varkala. That set me back 40 rupees (39p) but with no reservation I wasn't guaranteed a seat. Joy, the owner of Mattindia, had told me I wouldn't need a reservation, but then he is about one third my size and with a wig, and without a moustache, he could probably travel for child-fare. 

When the train arrived I rushed to climb aboard but was quickly discouraged: "No, Sir. That is a ladies-only carriage." I charged further down the platform and climbed up to meet a sea of blank faces. There was a seat half-way down and with an extra-big smile, I asked if the place was free. "Reservations," came the reply,"this carriage is for reservations."  And so it was: and so it was for the next four carriages. These seats were reserved for people with pre-booked reservations. Finally, I decided to chance my luck and just sit down and see what happened. The bench-seats are for three passengers, which is fine for normal Indians but not for XXL Brits. Half of me balanced on the aisle seat . . . but it was better than standing.

Indian Railways is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km (71,000 miles) of track and 7,172 stations. Last year it carried more than 23 million passengers daily. I can believe it. The train trundled on, averaging less than 30mph, but it got me to Varkala very cheaply, and there were taxis at the station, vying for trade to take me to my home by the beach.

Arriving at Varkala station