1984

Saturday 31st December 1983

Evidently there was a fancy-dress competition on somewhere as Mr Magoo turned up to breakfast dressed as a red Indian (American Native Indian) frog. Above his huge, magnified eyes he sported a yellow bandana and his soft white limbs dangled from a baggy embroidered waistcoat and some outsized shorts. Luckily, he left shortly after we arrived, so we were spared further renditions of his amazing exploits.

We walked to Kovalum Post Office so that George could post his cards and extended the walk to cover a circuit. We passed some nice but simple houses that formed part of the “Fisheries Project”, which I presume was some sort of fisherfolk cooperative scheme.

Research today reveals that Fisheries development started in the 1980s when fisheries co-operative societies were formed by the State Department of Fisheries (DoF). Society members belonging to scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST) living around the reservoir area were primarily agricultural labourers and minor forest produce collectors. They were drawn into the fisheries sector, especially reservoir fisheries, with the intention to channel and utilise special government funds, such as special component plan and tribal sub-plan funds, through SC/ST fishermen co-operatives.

There are 32 reservoirs of various sizes in Kerala, which were designed and constructed primarily for irrigation, power generation, drinking water supply, and flood control. The total water spread area is about 30,000 hectares. The hectare is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm²), or 10,000 m², and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres.

We had some hot cow’s milk in a bar by the lighthouse and moseyed back following a swim in the sea and drying out in the blazing sun. I wrote an aerogramme home and a light-hearted one to my old BP Research colleague Rob Rowe. I wrote in our room with the shutters open for a change to drive out the humidity and the smell, as well as to let in the light.

At about 16:00 hrs. we hit the surf again and were joined by a deaf German youth. We splashed about with him and playfully attacked each other under water. At dusk, thoroughly cheered up and with a vague feeling of excitement, we showered off the sea salt and got dressed in our room to the sound of the music of The Stranglers and The Jam from the room next door. Here a group of Aussies were getting steadily drunker.

George bought a couple of bananas and we went off to feed the monkey that was chained to a tree by the beach. It gorged them down and we looked on, amazed as a massive bulge appeared below it’s chin. This slowly dissipated as he digested the banana and he scampered on to our shoulders, grooming our hair.

Back at the Shangri-La Chitran did us proud with a prawn masala curry, which we drowned in tomato sauce and polished off in a trice. We got chatting to two Dutch medical students but were interrupted by a useless Japanese girl, who was always doing things wrong, when she came in to announce that she had just been bitten by a dog.

The Dutch girls snickered, and we weren’t forthcoming with the sympathy either. Mr Magoo took the initiative and steered her through the darkness and barking dogs to his medical kit. We chatted and got steadily drunker despite losing our precious rum reserves to the Dutch girls and the Sergeant, who came in to tell us an unintelligible yarn about Diwali.

Rum gone, the Dutch girls then gave us the brush off and headed for the beach. I overheard Mr Magoo whispering to the hapless Japanese girl that beer was available in the Black Cat café bar, so we headed hot foot for there.

This was not the case, but by chance, we found another bar that was selling beer at 16 Indian Rupees per bottle. We joined the groups of Western travellers squatting on the beach and a drunken lad from Durham in England tottered over.

Groups of Indians wandered along the beach being “hip”, wishing us Happy New Year and shaking our hands. We inadvertently “did a runner” (left without paying) after eating cheese on toast at one beach bar, but we were caught as we walked up the beach and had to pay our bill.

We found a bar playing the latest David Bowie LP and settled down at a bench outside. On the way back, 3 bottles of Sun Lager heavier, we tried to release the chained monkey, but our drunken fumbling and a lack of tools was to no avail and the monkey remained a prisoner (the owner would say pet).

Sometime during this debauch, the New Year 1984 had slipped in unnoticed as nobody had a watch and all the local Indian’s watches showed wildly differing times. We staggered back to our room in a drunken stupor.

We were yet to discover whether George Orwell’s predictions for 1984 and Big Brother would come true. Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8th June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of all persons and behaviours within society.

Commune

Friday 30th December 1983

Yesterday my ill-health put the mockers on (If someone or something puts the mockers on something, they prevent it from happening or from being successful. To thwart someone's efforts or cause them to have bad luck.) our trip to Cape Cormorin. Again, we ignored the 06:15 hrs. alarm as George was on the verge of vomiting.

I had breakfast and returned to find him out of bed but feeling lethargic. He forced down some breakfast and we both plodded up to the bank like a couple of drugged zombies. The Central Bank of India branch at Kovalum was surprisingly quick and efficient for an Indian bank.

We called into the wooden shed which served as the Post Office before tottering back to the beach. We paused along the way at one of the hotels on the road which was playing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” on a massive cassette player. We refreshed ourselves with a couple of drinks before returning to the beach. We hoped that the sea would revive us, and it did, a bit.

We read our books and dined on egg curry at a beach bar and watched some middle-aged Germans and a “guru” making idiots of themselves at an obscure ball game. The afternoon passed as we went in and out of the ocean, dried off in the sun, walked up and down the beach and read books.

It started off as an apathetic day, but we forced ourselves to do things and had quite an enjoyable time. The Sergeant’s son had been getting on with the construction of the Mark 2 Shangri-La which was a circular affair with a thatched roof.

Also, some hippies were forming a “commune” in the long shed nearby. Qualifications for joining this select band included long hair, severe emaciation, a Jesus-look beard, “Jesus boot” sandals and a gormless vacant expression. In essence you had to look like Jesus on hunger strike.

Some children were taunting a monkey which was attached to a tree on a chain near the beach and a frustrated tethered buffalo made abortive charges at passers-by. During our evening reading session, I looked up from my book and, like a dreadful apparition Mr Magoo was sitting opposite. His squat toady face stared through bottle-bottom thick glasses (spectacles).

Some of his old branchers (friends and acquaintances) joined him and he launched into “I had an incredible experience…”, at which point we paid up and fled into the night. We continued reading at the Black Cat Café on the beach until I could hardly keep my eyes open and then we turned in for the night. As we passed the Shangri-La Mr Magoo’s bass rumble indicated that he was still holding forth, giving listeners the benefit of his experience.

Christine

Above: Bath time in Kerala

Thursday 29th December 1983

We were intending to go to Cape Cormorin on the 06:45 hrs. bus but due to my latest bout of diarrhoea we ignored the alarm at 06:15 hrs. and slept in until 10:00 hrs. Kanyakumari, also known as Cape Comorin, is a town in Kanyakumari District in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. The southernmost town in mainland India, it is sometimes referred to as 'the Land's End'.

I still managed a hearty breakfast of 4 poached eggs and toast before doing some clothes washing. A rather nasty smell was emanating from George’s towel, so he set about washing that too. The good thing about this climate is that you can wear very few clothes, mainly just shorts, swimming costumes and a T-shirt, so little dirty laundry accumulates.

That done, we set off for the secluded beach south of the lighthouse. We swam for a bit and I took up a sheltered position in the shadow of the rocks to read my book out of the sun’s glare. When it started raining, we returned to the Shangri-La. We were feeling “washed out” in the afternoon so we had a siesta.

I started reading “Christine” by Stephen King and could not put it down. Christine is a horror novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1983. It tells the story of a car (a 1958 Plymouth Fury) apparently possessed by supernatural forces.

We had an evening reading session in the Shangri-La, battling for sufficient light against power cuts and sea breezes that blew out the subsequent candles. It pissed down with rain all evening and at 23:45 hrs. we got fed up with waiting for it to stop and dashed back to our room to bed.

Wazzocks

Wednesday 28th December 1983

When I awoke, I had the feeling that there was an urgent task to be done that day. This was not the case and we had no pressing engagements until the New Year 1984, so we sidled down to the beach.

On our initial dips we utilised the face mask that we had bought in Greece, but it revealed little but a submarine sandstorm and a few seashells. We were joined by the Austrian woman we’d shared a taxi with on Saturday. She gave us a chat on the merits of Goan beaches, telling us that they were uncrowded, safe for swimming, shading palm trees, available alcoholic drinks and picturesque inland scenery, and a rundown of the eating delights of Singapore.

When she moved on, we had a coffee in the shade offered by the Velvet Dawn Restaurant. We buggered about a bit more in the sea until I thought it was time to retreat from the sun, which was trying the sneaky approach to burning skin, using cloud cover as a deceptive mask. A lunchtime meal and a photo session ensued at the Shangri-La.

We spent the afternoon exploring the seemingly endless beach that started at the Kovalum Ashok Hotel and stretched away to the north. Wealthy Indians stood about on the initial bit, dressed up but not appearing to know quite what to do. Some took family photographs arranging their subjects in strict formal poses against the backdrop of the sea.

Some of the younger ones splashed about in the surf but were reluctant to go out more than waist deep. Some of them lay in the shallows with the water lapping around them and some just stood fully clothed in Western garb thigh-deep in the water.

We walked along the sugary sand with a blazing sun on our left and palm trees on our right. Beyond the palms were huts and shallow lakes that were probably cultivated paddy fields. We walked for half and hour, relatively undisturbed, for there were few people about.

As we neared a fishing settlement, we were assailed by questioning natives. “Where are you going”? “You are coming from”? “You want good boat trip”? We did an about-turn and headed back. Near the Ashok we had a lemon soda in a small, blue-painted restaurant. Two northern English wazzocks with bleached punky hairdos posed with fags (cigarettes) in the corner.

Wazzock: NOUN, BRITISH, informal: a stupid or annoying person.

synonyms:

idiot · halfwit · nincompoop · blockhead · buffoon · dunce · dolt · ignoramus · cretin · imbecile · dullard · moron · simpleton · clod · dope · ninny · chump · dimwit · nitwit · goon · dumbo · dummy · dum-dum · dumb-bell · loon · jackass · bonehead · fathead · numbskull · dunderhead · chucklehead · knucklehead · muttonhead · pudding-head · thickhead · wooden-head · airhead · pinhead · lamebrain · pea-brain · birdbrain · zombie · jerk · nerd · dipstick · donkey · noodle · nit · numpty · twit · clot · ass · goat · plonker · berk · prat · pillock · wally · git · divvy · nerk · twerp · charlie · mug · muppet · nyaff · balloon · sumph · gowk · gobdaw · schmuck · bozo · boob · lamer · turkey · schlepper · chowderhead · dumbhead · dumbass · goofball · goof · goofus · galoot · dork · lummox · klutz · putz · schlemiel · sap · meatball · gink · cluck · clunk · ding-dong · dingbat · wiener · weeny · dip · simp · spud · coot · palooka · poop · squarehead · yo-yo · dingleberry · wing nut · drongo · dill · alec · galah · nong · bogan · poon · boofhead · mompara · tomfool · noddy · clodpole · loggerhead · spoony · mooncalf.

After supper we went for a swim in the sea in the dark. It was very eerie as the black sea water rumbled and roared and white surf would suddenly rear in front of you. We kept to the shallows as twice today we had overheard talk of recent drownings here.

We ran along the beach at the water's edge and by the Northern rocks a demented soul lay half submerged and cackling. We were already feeling jittery, despite the close proximity of the well-lit beach bars, so we fled back towards the lighthouse.

Following a shower, we were back in the Shangri-La. Despite the departure of the Cindy’s this afternoon the Danish contingent were still as big as ever and an animated discussion was underway, heads bobbing and bouncing with merriment.

On a more positive note, one of their number had contributed a cassette tape with some new material on it, including David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen songs. This made a change from the endless Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton replays.

We turned in and I spent most of the night running to the toilet and back.

Trivandrum

Tuesday 27th December 1983

It pissed down with rain during the night and it was still raining when we were awoken at 09:30 hrs. by the Sergeant doing his rent-collecting rounds. We moved into the Shangri-La Restaurant where we found the Danish mob were still as full of beans as ever, juggling and photographing each other, squealing, and chattering together. We had a mammoth breakfast and struggled up to the bus stop with bulging bellies. Luck was with our timing and we leapt aboard just as the bus was pulling out enroute for Trivandrum.

We booked our train ticket to Madras for 1st January 1984. It cost us 65 Indian Rupees and the journey involved a change at Quillon. The train for Quillon left Trivandrum Railway Station at 18:30 hrs. on New Year’s Day 01/01/1984. Along with Muziris, Quilon was an ancient seaport on the Malabar Coast of India from the early centuries before the Christian era. The city had a high commercial reputation from the days of the Phoenicians and Ancient Romans. Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) mentions Greek ships anchored at Muziris and Nelcynda.

We were on our way back towards the rum purveyors when I noticed a long, but orderly queue. This was so rare as to attract our attention and when we noticed that the line led up to the cinema box office for the “Battle of the Bulge” we tagged along behind. The film was billed to start at 13:00 hrs. and it was already 13:15 hrs., but after we had paid our 4 Indian Rupees we walked in just in time for the opening credits. Immaculate timing again!

‘Battle of the Bulge’ is an American classic war movie, it was made in Spain and hit the screens in 1965. It was directed by Ken Annakin. The starring cast included Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Dana Andrews, and Robert Ryan as well as many other familiar American actors. The film cheered us up as usual, providing movie escapism for a couple of hours.

We got our rum afterwards and joined another orderly queue, enforced by the police, for the Kovalum bus. We stood out the swaying journey on the packed bus and steamed into the Shangri-La Restaurant for sustenance. When we got fed up of sitting inside we went for an evening dip in the sea.

A few rays from the dying sun escaped from behind a screen of dark, angry clouds and the water positively boiled. We splashed in the turmoil, sparring at the white spume and tumultuous waves with Kung Fu and Boxing assaults. We emerged tired and dripping at 19:00 hrs. and grabbed a bottle of rum to brighten an evening at the Shangri-La.

There were a load of new arrivals so we had plenty to be appalled at. We chatted to the staff: Ambi (Surindran), Mohanan, Chitran and “Roti”, who’s real name sounded something like Shish Kebab. Most of the other diners disappeared at about 20:00 hrs. and we sat there with a warm glow as the rum level went down in the bottle.

A fruit bat kept flying in crazily to snatch at the huge bunch of bananas suspended above Ambi’s desk, but it always darted away empty handed. Occasionally a newt-like lizard darted from behind a framed religious picture to snatch at the small moths fluttering around the adjacent light bulb.

The Cindy’s came in late to sign the visitors’ book because they were leaving Kovalum tomorrow. “You’d never think that ten Danes could make so much noise”, Pixie translated her writing to Ambi. Our sentiments exactly, we told her!

We vacated the tables, which doubled as the staff’s beds, as they were standing about impatiently waiting to retire at about 23:00 hrs.

Shangri La

Monday 26th December 1983. Boxing Day.

We were all in good spirits and reasonably good health when we awoke. George popped half a dozen miscellaneous pills while Martin collected his gear together in preparation for his train trip to Delhi. We gorged on eggs in the Shangri-La while Martin giggled as he wrote obscenities in their “Visitors Comments” Book.

Fat bearded Bob, an American, glowered at us across the tables. Evidently, he was unimpressed by our mimicking of his accent, easily audible through the thin wall which separated his room from ours. Roti was feverishly hauling buckets of water from the well for his morning shower and the rusty pulley shrieked in protest.

After breakfast we dithered around waiting for Martin to depart for the capital. Always a favourite with us, the farewell partings. Why couldn’t people just disappear instead of an emotional heart-string tugging session? In the end, following a group photograph courtesy of Martin’s SLR camera self-timer, Martin bid us farewell, donned his rucksack and lit out with shouts of derision ringing in his ears.

“Goodbye beanbag”, we yelled as he trudged reluctantly up the trail. Martin had some good mates! Unfortunately, during the taking of the group photograph Martin had set up his Canon camera on a wall, initiated the self-timer and in vaulting over to join us in the snap, he pulled his muscle afresh.

We reviewed the inane, grammatically incorrect, and misspelt addition to the Shangri-La Comments Book that Martin had penned before we got down on the beach. We bathed in the sea and read our books and in a trice, Martin was forgotten. George went “up the junction” to Kovalum Junction, to exchange travellers cheques the bank and I amused myself by washing my clothes, myself and my Karrimor holdall on which an interesting mould culture had blossomed.

It was great just doing these simple things that one would normally regard as chores. George returned looking very debonair, having visited a barber shop in Kovalum and dashing his hopes of passing as an Australian hippy. Most of the crowd seemed to have moved out yesterday and it was nice and peaceful on the beach and around the Sreevas Lodge.

I wrote an aerogramme to Richard Willis (a friend and Swagman Backpacking Club founder member) while listening to early Rolling Stones records on the cassette player. I lazed about in the vast new space in our room, which was really only a double, left by the removal of “Handwork’s” bed while George dozed on the beach.

Later we sat in the Shangri-La and appraised the new arrivals as we tucked into the potato, onion and 2 eggs omelette smothered in tomato sauce. “Australian peoples”, sniggered Ambi as the Australian macho team came in. Uniformly sarong-clad and thong (flip-flops to us) shod, they swaggered in with a display of body musculature. Chests forward, upper torsos braced, heads set resolutely.

We moved out and wandered along the beach in search of greener pastures. George suggested we seek out the exclusive Kovalam Ashok Beach Resort which boasted to being the first, finest and largest five-star beach resort in Kerala, and this we did.

Well secluded amongst a screen of palm trees and segregated from the riff-raff beaches by a rocky promontory, the Ashok was a picture of wealth and affluence, a different world. A tariff board listed extortionate charges for water sports and the hire of beach furniture. A row of gleaming taxis waited by the reception building.

As we walked along to the beach, I spotted what I thought was a nutcase lurking immobile in the shadows. It turned out to be a very lifelike plaster model of a Caucasian male in swimming costume and flip-flops. His left hand had been broken off, but apart from this his lifelikeness was uncanny and most disquieting.

We walked back to “our” beach and had Bournvita, a malted and chocolate malt drink manufactured by Cadbury, in a beach bar before returning to the Shangri-La. Bangs, crashes and the faint rumble of music from the surrounding areas signified another festival with firework celebrations was taking place.

We read our books for a short while in the Shangri-La as the “Macho Team” conversed in grunts and murmurs, and the Danish contingent squealed and woobled like school kids on a day out.

Xmas in Paradise

Sunday 25th December 1983. Christmas Day.

We awoke to Martin’s grumbling of discomfort and indulgently ordered coffee in bed, brought down by Roti. I went to write my daily log and have breakfast at the Shangri-La while George and Martin did their dhobi (laundry).

We then hit the beach, further along the coast than usual. The sun was merciless, and thousands of Indians clad in Y-fronts were splashing about in the sea. Others in colourful dress walked up and down the beach staring at the Westerners as if they were exhibits in a Safari Park. Dirty old Indian men openly perved at the bare tits on display by sunbathing white women on the beach while trying to look pious.

We had a second breakfast of 4 boiled eggs and toast in the company of other Londoners in a beach bar before splashing in the sea for a while. When I reached the point that I thought that the sun would broil me I returned to our room. I finished reading “A Kiss before Dying” and returned to the beach.

Christmas Day passed in this manner, drifting between the beach, dips in the ocean, drinks and snacks in cafés and rests in the shady interior of our room. We bickered, haggled and saw off fruit vendors, sarong sellers, dope traders, and dhobi wallahs. So much for Christmas on the beach.

We now wait in the Shangri-La to see what they have managed to rustle up in the way of Christmas dinner with the component chicken and vegetables. I borrowed another book from the library: “The Chieftains” by Bob Forrest-Webb. This was billed as “A fantastic book set in the 1980's/90's about 3 tank crews, one a British Chieftain, another a British scimitar light tank, and the third an American M1. It follows the first few days of World War 3, and the Russian and Warsaw Pact forces invading into West Germany against NATO”.

Apparently, the author was born in Nottingham, but raised and educated mainly in Merseyside with his Cheshire family, then served in both the army and merchant navy. He had crossed the Sahara and back on a motorcycle, spent long periods of time in Indian and African jungles, won the British Kayak Championships and attained 3rd Dan Black Belt status in Aikido!

The cooked chicken appeared to consist of a very rugged plastic material and after a long battle we got about three hard-won mouthfuls each. Still, the vegetables were alright. The Shangri-La continued to fill up rapidly but although the three other tables were packed, we retained the fourth with just the three of us on it. Nobody wanted to sit with the social lepers that regarded them with disdain!

The kitchen was soon in chaos with Ambi, Chapati and Roti like whirling dervishes trying to keep up with simultaneous orders from all and sundry. We vacated our table and left them to it. We wandered along the beach in search of a café with power (there was none at the Shangri-La), good music and a non-lairy crowd of customers and an inexhaustible supply of Thums Up cola to dilute our last bottle of Haywards XXX Rum.

The beach still had electricity and the fairy lights were in full swing everywhere. One bar even had an obscure tree outside with a cardboard star on top and draped with lights. We found a place that was playing David Bowie’s “Young Americans” album and moved in to polish off their last two colas.

The music suddenly stopped for no reason, and we moved on to a scruffy looking shed with a table outside. Our hosts were an tall, effeminate, bespectacled man with nail varnish on, and a youngster with Donny Osmond teeth and a winning smile.

We were introduced to the Malayalam language and were launched into lessons in how to speak it. Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. Variations in intonation patterns, vocabulary, and distribution of grammatical and phonological elements are observable along the parameters of region, religion, community, occupation, social stratum, style and register. Dialects of Malayalam are distinguishable at regional and social levels, including occupational and also communal differences. Not easily mastered when full of Haywards XXX Rum (or perhaps it is)!

Further general chit-chat included a recollection of famous cricketers (Ken Goose?) which pleased George. The lanky wretch made obscene models out of a lump of dough and Martin looked increasingly bored as the level in the rum bottle went down. He was not drinking it as the chump couldn’t be bothered to buy any in Trivandrum and besides, the last bottle made him sick.

I tipped over backwards on my stool as the rum took effect, much to the amusement of all. We returned to the Shangri-La as a group of lairy Indians came over to ask if they could share our rum. We took the piss out of the other patrons of the Shangri-La as usual and argued about professional boxing (George was a big fan) before turning in for drugged (alcohol) night’s sleep.

Listen to Christmas In Paradise by Mary Gauthier.

Tilak

Saturday 24th December 1983. Christmas Eve.

The alarm clock went off at 07:00 hrs. and George and I were up, dressed and away while Martin was still rubbing sleep from his eyes. We took the bus into Trivandrum and had breakfast in the Indian Coffee House while we waited for the liquor shop to open.

Businessmen walked swiftly to work wearing formal shirts, sarongs and brief cases under their arms. They were mainly bare-footed and bore a cream-coloured smear across their foreheads, embellished with a red spot. This is a Tilak and shows that they are Hindu.

The Bindi is a dot worn on the forehead right above the nose. It is a type of Tilak. Married Hindu women traditionally wear the Bindi. It symbolizes the energy of women and is said to protect her and her spouse from evil. However, today, it has less of a religious meaning and has a more decorative connotation. Now, unmarried girls are wearing elaborate Bindis as form of jewellery. This is just an example of the changing times.

Tilak: This symbol is very similar to the Bindi. It is a mark on the forehead. The Tilak for a man is a straight line and a dot for a woman. The slight differences in lines or dots help distinguish between the different sects of Hinduism. The Tilak is made out of clay or ash, which give many of them a reddish color. The Tilak is applied everyday to very serious Hindus. All Hindus wear a Tilak whenever they visit a temple (even non-Hindus are given one when they visit a temple) and on special religions ceremonies (weddings). The mixture that the Tilak is made from cools the forehead and helps mediation for it makes one more focused.

All the red flags were out across the roads and around the hammer and sickle monuments and statues. Police in baggy shorts belled out by wire frames stood on podiums at road junctions and waved their arms about and were totally ignored by the reckless streams of hooting traffic. Cyclists strained to push their metal steeds uphill against the weight of huge sacks tied onto their bike racks.

We bought some Dettol, our multipurpose medication, some Lomotil pills, rum and half a bottle of whisky for the Serge’s son. Back at the bus stand we were greeted by the prospect of a 45-minute wait so we were swayed into starting a taxi pool. We sat in the back seat of the cab with a middle-aged Austrian woman and an Indian, while 2 German girls, another Indian and the driver crammed into the front seats.

We hurtled back to Kovalum with the driver blasting a clear passage through the other traffic with his horn. Back at the Sreevas we had a drink before joining Martin on the beach. The sun was out and the sky was blue and, as usual, a swim in the sea made us happy to be alive.

George and I walked around to the next bay which was considerably more dangerous as the seabed sloped down so rapidly that the terrific undertow could whisk you out of your depth in a trice. The beach was packed and most of the women were topless, a mistake in many cases as the sun mercilessly burnt the sensitive skin which seldom saw the light of day.

We were bored after an hour or so and returned to the Shangri-La for lunch and a break from the solar grilling. A photographic mission was next on the agenda, so we grabbed our cameras and set off passed the lighthouse to the fishing settlement by the mosque.

The mosque was still under construction (started in 1976) and was being built to serve the Muslim inhabitants of the village. There was also a Christian church on the opposite side of Vizhinjam Fishing Harbour Beach bay. Apparently, the rival religious devotees clashed violently from time to time, merrily burning each other’s huts and killing each other in the spirit of Jihad and the Crusades.

We walked through the obstacle course of drying nets, ropes, and huts made entirely from palm fronds. Women and children shouted greetings and “beggings” as we passed. In the thick of the village the air got quite menacing as villagers crowded around us, we were ironic symbols of wealth amongst their poverty.

I got the impression that a lone tourist at night could “disappear” in this place. Luckily, we were 3 strapping young lads and we kept on the move. Bloated ugly black pigs snuffled through the shit and garbage around an area where the crude wooden crosses indicated a graveyard. We grabbed a few photos and made our way back alongside a muddy stream where a colourful crowd were performing their ablutions, cause for sneaking a covert photograph.

Back at our room the Cindy’s were lying in wait for us and George was soon embroiled in a chat about their native Denmark with the animated “Pixie”. “No Neck” looked sullen and hung out her washing with safety pins instead of clothes pegs.

George and I went down to the sea again and had a marvellous swim as the sun went down. We had begun to “read” the sea so as to judge the waves just right for body surfing up onto the sandy beach. Every now and again misjudgement would result in us being smashed and battered along the abrasive seabed.

Good judgement would result in you roaring towards the beach in a Superman flying posture with a turbulent cushion of foam beneath your chest. Surprisingly my flip-flops were still where I left them on the beach when we returned, tired and sun-scorched, to our room.

We had a shower and, on the way back, the Sergeant had a question for us. “This is the night that Father Christmas is coming to your very house”? We dressed quickly and got into the Shangri-La just before the heavens opened in a mighty deluge of rain.

It was initially empty, but a few more morose faces appeared fairly shortly. Two new girls appeared and Rolf Harris lookalike that we nicknamed “Mr. Magoo” started on the “Where’ve you been? Where ya going to”? routine and an English bloke and another American soon joined in eagerly to expound their travel itinerary, in the game of one-upmanship.

Mr. Magoo is a fictional cartoon character created at the UPA animation studio in 1949. Voiced by Jim Backus, Mr. Magoo is a elderly, wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of comical situations as a result of his extreme near-sightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem. However, through uncanny streaks of luck, the situation always seems to work itself out for him, leaving him no worse than before.

A group of kraut hippies were getting high on our left and two blokes opposite were a picture of misery. An emaciated bearded Australian looked as if he had just got word about the extermination of his family back home and “Nero”, a German fellow who wore his sarong like a toga, looked like he had just received a “Dear John” letter.

A "Dear John letter" is a letter written to a husband or boyfriend to inform him their relationship is over, usually because the author has found another lover. Dear John Letters are often written out of an inability or unwillingness to inform the man in person.

You could generally tell how long a traveller had been roving the Indian sub-continent by how emaciated they were. They wore their skeletal appearance as a badge of honour and a sign that they had “gone native” on their travels. One jovial traveller we nicknamed “Harry Belsen, the jolly skeleton”!

George and I broke out the rum and Martin wandered back to our room complaining that the cheese spaghetti had “done him up” (made him feel ill). We gave “Nero” some rum in an effort to cheer him up. We joked with Ambi and Chapati, who was pissed (drunk) and being silly, and we agreed that this was a miserable way to spend Christmas, in a tropical storm a long way from home.

We explained that Martin was not married and had thus gone for a J. Arthur ("J. Arthur Rank" has been used as cockney rhyming slang, both for " bank " and "wank" (slang for masturbation), typically shortened to "J. Arthur" or just "Arthur". This revelation was much to Chapati’s amusement and he gambolled about the restaurant miming the act to everyone’s embarrassment. As the result of this the staff changed Martin’s nickname from “Limca” to “Handwork”!

The Cindys returned as everyone else vacated and we gave Pixie a tot of rum. She didn’t stop yacking after that. She had sussed that we were Australians because of my accent! It was not the clipped precise BBC English that she expected from British people.

The Shangri-La closed down for the night and George and I wandered down to the beach. We had four boiled eggs and toast each at a beach café where Indians in Western attire were rapidly switching through their range of Western music cassettes on a portable player. They were apparently having a beach barbeque.

In my opinion Christmas is an occasion to celebrate at home and you can keep your Christmas dinner on the beach. Give me good old snow any day. We turned in and slept well, disturbed only by Martin chundering (being sick) on the step outside our door.

Quarry

Friday 23rd December 1983

I skipped breakfast and popped a couple of Lomotil tablets as my stomach was still bad and I had the shits. George and Martin returned from the Shangri-La appalled by our fellow travellers, especially the tubby Yankie hippie who looked like (the now disgraced) Rolf Harris and was travelling in order to “find himself”.

George set off on a sortie into Trivandrum and Martin and I hit the beach. The sun was blazing for a short while and the sea was very turbulent, chucking us about mercilessly. The sky clouded over and we retreated to our room, read our books for a while, and then walked into Kovalum so that Martin could post his postcards.

We had to wait for the Post Office to reopen after lunch and we sat on a pile of logs chatting. Martin was disillusioned with India and was not much looking forward to Australia. We discussed job opportunities in Australia, but it was a futile exercise as we could only wait and see what opportunities arose when we got there.

I got some lovely peanut brittle, which was a treat, and we wandered back passed the industrious quarry where a thin wall of rock remained from where the miners had attacked an outcrop from both sides.

I had a shave and we both had a siesta until George returned, hammering on the door to wake us up. George and I went swimming in the sea, which was still running heavy.

At 17:30 hrs. I returned to library to exchange “The Contract” for “A Kiss before Dying” by Ira Levin. A Kiss Before Dying is a 1953 novel written by Ira Levin. It won the 1954 Edgar Award, for Best First Novel.

Now a modern crime classic, Levin's story centres on a charming, intelligent man who will stop at nothing, even murder, to get where he wants to go. His problem is a pregnant woman who loves him. The solution involves desperate measures. The book has been adapted twice for the cinema: first in 1956 and later in 1991.

As darkness fell, we waged war against squadrons of mosquitos that invaded our room. If you smashed one while it was in the process of drinking from your body, then there was a disquieting amount of blood spattered about.

At 19:00 hrs. we went into the Shangri-La restaurant and I took a chance on some scrambled egg as my stomach was a bit more stable. We read our books peacefully until the tropical tranquillity was shattered by the gleeful twittering that signalled the return of the “Cindy’s”, who we had further nicknamed “No Neck” and “Pixie”.

“It was raining”, said No Neck, a harsh guttural statement, “zo ve hav kom bak”. They soon settled into their old routine, with Pixie bobbing and animated, wide-eyed and rabbiting enthusiastically. No Neck kept up a supporting role in a base monotone. Ambi, chapati and roti were in high spirits, giggling and buggering about with us. The evening chorus of insects thrummed vibrantly in the darkness.

We turned in at 22:00 hrs. and George and I dozed off to the sound of Martin cursing and slapping “flies” as he tossed and turned on his hard bed.

Vizhinjam Mosque Juma Masjid

Thursday 22nd December 1983

We all felt rough when we awoke so we steamed into the ocean to freshen up. This did the trick and I returned to do some laundry, leaving George to run up and down the beach in retrieval of Martin’s appalling frisbee throws.

I hung my washing out to dry and continued reading “The Contract” by Gerald Seymour (Set against a backdrop of the treacherous East/West German border, this tells of the journey into redemption for a disgraced British army officer who requires the defection of a topflight Soviet scientist). This was a book that I had on loan from the Shangri-La library at a cost of 50 paise per day.

The weather had brightened up by the sky was still overcast. We had lunch at 14:00 hrs. and George negotiated our Christmas fare with Ambi, setting up a roast chicken and boiled vegetable repast. A new English couple arrived and began to pick fussily at their food as George and I headed out to explore the beach on the other side of the lighthouse.

We walked through an area thick with hotels that we didn’t even know existed. The area was certainly commercialising rapidly, and justified the opinion of Sergeant’s son, who had voiced the fear that Kovalum would become another Goa.

We clambered over rocks that were used by the locals as a toilet facility (yuk!) and came across a picturesque cove where fishermen were spreading their nets on the sand. We weaved between the beached boats and the palm-thatched huts with all the little kids squealing “hello” to us.

A bit further along there was a new mosque under construction, an imposing structure with two tall minarets and a large dome. This was to be the Vizhinjam Mosque Juma Masjid. Passed this we found a harbour with crude fishing boats along the shore as far as the eye could see.

Children played in the sand outside the hundreds of huts and a nasty aroma testified that they were not too fussy about where they had a shit! The stares of the natives indicated to us that tourists were a rare sight here.

We wandered back and were nearly eradicated by a speeding bus before we safely arrived at a “milk bar” overlooking the beach. We talked of joining the Fire Brigade on our return to England. We got back to our room and about 15 minutes later Martin returned from doing the same exploratory tour.

We read for a while and “Chapati” served us coffee in our room while the Sergeant kept a lonely vigil outside our door in a hammock. We found the Shangri-La to be packed out at dusk and we sat in camp chairs provided by the Sarge’s son until a crowd of German travellers vacated.

I was feeling a bit ill and, after an egg curry and fruit porridge, joined Martin in returning to our room for a lie down. I read the gripping finish of “The Contract” and was embarking on the Flashman book again, when George came in nursing a bleeding, stubbed toe.

We settled down to sleep when a rhythmic chanting started, accompanied by a guitar and drumming on a tabletop. It became recognisable as a rendition of “Smoke on the Water”, originally a Deep Purple classic rock hit. This was soon drowned out by a torrential downpour of rain. I dozed off with my stomach in turmoil, rumbling and gurgling (refer back to the note on Shangri-La kitchen hygiene, or perhaps it was due to Indian rum).

NOTE: We had discovered that the staff of the Shangri-La used their squat toilet (hole in the ground) to empty their bowels then cleaned their bottoms with their hands and a jug of water, before drying them on a tea towel and continuing with food preparation and cooking. This explained why a lot of their customers left the café with an impending dose of diarrhoea and vomiting.

Rum

Above: Martin's ruin!

Wednesday 21st December 1983

George and I went on a booze hauling trip into Trivandrum, leaving Martin doing his laundry at the well. I wrote a postcard to Martin’s mum bemoaning his fate, pretending that it was from Martin himself, as we waited for the bus.

We passed the beavering stone-chippers and villages of palm-thatched buildings as the bus hurtled along the uneven road. Mysteriously the bus fare had increased by 40 paise, to 1.60 Indian Rupees.

We arrived in town and toured all of the Government approved liquor outlets on the way up to the General Post Office on Mahatma Gandhi Road. Many of them had a sudden price increase as we walked in, but we eventually got 3 bottles of Haywards XXX Rum for 34 Indian Rupees each.

We despatched our postcards and aerogrammes at the G.P.O. and stopped for a coffee over the road. Here they had a mysterious system by which they poured hot milk and water into a metal cup until it overflowed into a metal bowl that it was standing in. They then dumped a teaspoon of Nescafé onto the brimming cup so that it overflowed again and served it up.

At the traffic lights an ox cart and a coach vied for a good starting position, waiting for the green light. George invested in a vitamin supplement that looked like axle grease and we returned to the bus stop where a familiar chump was waiting.

Martin had been to Trivandrum Medical College for “treatment” for his aching arm. He had taken buses and autorickshaws to get there as he was convinced that he was dying. Luckily only a pulled muscle was diagnosed (probably as the result of being tossed onto the beach by a vicious wave in the powerful surf on Lighthouse Beach). He seemed unconcerned that he had jumped the queue of Indians with more serious complaints, by virtue of the fact that he was a rich white tourist.

He left clutching a tub of painkillers and met us at the bus stop for the return trip to Kovalum. We had the usual punch up getting on the bus but secured some seats behind a couple of weirdo’s who were also conveying beer to Kovalum.

Back at the Sreevas Lodge we dined on egg curry before going for our daily dip in the Arabian Sea. There were some big breakers and we were tossed and buffeted in the savage surf. We emerged refreshed to chuck a frisbee about and returned for another delightful meal in the Shangri-La.

We started on another bottle of rum and very soon we were under the influence. We laughed and joked with the three staff, who were Ambi, “Chapati” Mohanan and “Roti”. They in turn nicknamed us after the three soft drinks available, Thums Up (George), Gold Spot (me) and Limca (Martin).

The staff nicknames came from chapati flatbread which they specialised in (alternatively spelled chapatti, chappati, chapathi, or chappathi), also known as roti, safati, shabaati, phulka and (in the Maldives) roshi, is an unleavened flatbread originating from the Indian subcontinent and staple in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, East Africa and the Caribbean. Chapatis are made of whole-wheat flour known as atta, mixed into dough with water, oil and optional salt in a mixing utensil called a parat, and are cooked on a tava (flat skillet).

We were three sheets to the wind when “closing time” came and tottered back to our room. Just before entering Martin fell to his hands and knees to execute a “technicolour yawn” and I snapped away merrily with my camera to capture the moment for prosperity on celluloid.

See Intoxicated Abroad for travel inspiration. Life's too short to be sober at home!

Communists

Tuesday 20th December 1983

I wrote an aerogramme to an old workmate (Keith Nunn) and walked into Kovalum with George to post it. Martin chose to swan about on the beach, peering surreptitiously over his book at the scantily clad ladies.

The air was full of the chip chipping of stone breakers in the quarry as we walked into the lazy little village. The Post Office was closed, but we posted our letters in the box and George changed up some money in the local bank.

The weather was still heavily humid and overcast with occasional spots of rain. This southern state appears to be more organised and the people wealthier than in other parts of India that we had visited. They certainly appear to be more politically motivated as the slogans daubed on the walls and the red hammer and sickle bunting in Trivandrum will testify.

As we walked back towards the beach a jeep with a loudspeaker system passed us blaring political clap trap. Kerala was the first place to freely vote in a Communist Government in 1957. A Communist-led government under E. M. S. Namboodiripad resulted from the first elections for the new Kerala Legislative Assembly in 1957, making him the first communist leader in India to head a popularly elected government.

I am informed by Wikipedia that an important feature of the anti-Colonial struggles in Malabar district, Cochin Kingdom and Travancore Kingdom (these three regions will later form Kerala state, along with some regions from South Kanara) in the 1920s and 1930s was the increasing involvement of peasants and workers. The peasant and labour movements of the 1930s were to a great extent the cause as well as the consequence of the emergence of a powerful left wing in politics.

We went down to the beach and went swimming while Martin sat on the sand surrounded by vendors of fruit, mats and sarongs. At 15:30 hrs. we had lunch in the Shangri-La. The dull oppressive weather seems to have brought a general air of depression with it and everybody is sitting sullenly and dismal despite a lively output from the music cassette deck.

We locked our valuables in our room and clad in our swimming costumes we returned to bathe in the sea. The sky was steel grey, but it was warm and the rain went unnoticed as we were tossed and buffeted by some of the biggest waves yet. The beach was deserted and remained so when we returned to the Shangri-La for supper.

I tried the boiled vegetable platter, which was wholesome, but almost devoid of taste. A mixed crowd of Aussies and English travellers came in and immediately began to pry into the affairs of others. We left them to it, negotiating the vague path from Sreevas to the road connecting the beach to the village, in the darkness.

The rain sounded worse than it was, in fact it was really only spitting. We bought some postcards and wrote them in a café patronised by a hippy group who were avidly smoking dope between two stereo speakers blaring heavy rock music. A tubby American hippy drawled “isn’t it incongruous that we are in Southern India listening to American rock, and American singers such as Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton”.

We returned to our abode along the track, trying to avoid the puddles and the belching frogs, as we tried to make out the path through thick vegetation in the sodden gloom. Our flip flops stuck in the mud and then suddenly flipped free, sending a shower of wet sand up the backs of our legs.

This morning as we were following this trail we saw many black birds with yellow diamonds around their eyes running through the grass. These were probably the common myna or Indian myna, sometimes spelled mynah, is a member of the family Sturnidae native to Asia. An omnivorous open woodland bird with a strong territorial instinct, the common myna has adapted extremely well to urban environments.

There were also nasty black raven-type birds with grey hoods perched on tethered cattle and the low stone walls. One calf looked as though it was dead, and these evil looking birds were pecking out it’s eyes, but suddenly it stirred and they all flew off.

Due to the weather the Shangri-La was still chock full of beanbags (bores) so we read our books in our room before passing into slumber.

Thums Up

Monday 19th December 1983

Breakfast was superb again, though eaten to the tune of Martin grizzling. His arm was stiff and aching, his foot was blistered and cut from his cheap sandals and he hadn’t slept a wink on his hard torture bed.

We later discovered that the staff of the Shangri-La used their squat toilet (hole in the ground) to empty their bowels then cleaned their bottoms with their hands and a jug of water, before drying them on a tea towel and continuing with food preparation and cooking. This explained why a lot of their customers left the café with an impending dose of diarrhoea and vomiting.

On our slow progression across Europe and Asia George and I had acclimatised to gradually deteriorating food hygiene standards and had built up some immunity to bugs, but Martin, having flown direct from London to Delhi, had not. Martin wanted to go into town to book his train ticket to Delhi, so I went with him sensing that George wanted to be on his own for a while (needed some “space” from Martin). There was a bit of personality clash between George and Martin.

We flagged down the bus which passed us while we were walking inland towards Kovalum village. The rock breakers were hard at work as usual, all along the road to Trivandrum, beneath an overcast sky. We reached the bus station after a detour due to road works (fare 1.20 Indian Rupees) and our first call was at a chemists (pharmacy).

Martin managed to buy a bottle of Dettol disinfectant despite him referring to it as TCP (TCP is a mild antiseptic, produced in France by Laboratoires Chemineau in Vouvray and sold in the United Kingdom by Omega Pharma. TCP was introduced in 1918. The brand name comes from its original chemical name, which was trichlorophenylmethyliodosalicyl.

Trichlorophenylmethyliodosalicyl was replaced as the active ingredient by a mixture of phenol and halogenated phenols in the 1950s. The liquid form of TCP is one of the best-known brands of antiseptic in the UK, and its distinctively strong medicinal odour can be identified by many as a generic antiseptic smell.), and following an animated discussion with the pharmacist and his assistants he added more nondescript pills to those he had taken this morning.

This morning’s medical cocktail included anti-malarial pills, pain killers, and penicillin tablets. What a hypochondriac! We continued through the grubby, hooting, chaotic traffic and the shouting curly-haired, dark-skinned crowd to the railway station. Martin discovered that the train that he wanted to book for 30th December 1983 was fully booked, so we returned to the Tourist Office in the hope of getting a seat reserved by the Tourist Quota.

They redirected Martin to the Railway Superintendent in another part of town, who offered to put him on the waiting list in case of a cancellation. Martin argued and cursed, especially when the Indian official asked him if he could speak English!

We wandered back to the Reservations Office with Martin muttering something about a desire to initiate saturation bombing of the Indian Sub-Continent (Much along the lines of the American Foreign Policy of turning the Middle East into a Parking Lot).

In the end he had to settle for a seat on the 26th December 1983 train and parted with the large sum of 175 Indian Rupees for the dubious pleasure of a 51-hour Indian train journey.

Google research today reveals that “Trivandrum to Delhi train timings and fare are the two main factors that compel travellers to opt for Trivandrum to Delhi Trains for a hassle-free journey. Rajdhani Express is the fastest among the Trivandrum to Delhi Trains. It departs from Trivandrum Central Railway Station at 19:15 hrs. and arrives at Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station at 12:40 hrs., covering the distance in just 1 day 17 hours and 25 minutes.”

Our next quest was the search for Christmas alcoholic beverages. We did the rounds of the Wine Merchants on the way up to the Post Office where I bought some aerogrammes. Wine was 50 Indian Rupees per bottle! We eventually settled on a bottle of rum each, at 35 Indian Rupees a pop, which we could drink with Thums Up cola as a mixer.

Thums Up is a brand of cola in India. The logo is a red thumbs up. It was introduced in 1977 to offset the withdrawal of The Coca-Cola Company from India. The brand was later bought by Coca-Cola who re-launched it in order to compete against Pepsi.

For good measure we bought 3 bottles of beer each, at 13 Indian Rupees a throw (39Rs for the trio). Weighed down with our plonk we trudged wearily back to the bus stop. The traffic continued to throw up sand and expel black exhaust clouds from poorly combusted fuel as we battled along, expelled from the pavement by stalls and myriad obstructions.

A respectable looking gentleman tried to organise the crowd into an orderly queue and had just about succeeded when a bus pulled up. The “queue” went mad, every man for himself, jostling, tugging and pushing to get aboard. The small wiry locals were no match for us burly Westerners who had adopted the “when in Rome” approach with gusto and several of us had surged aboard when we discovered that it was the wrong bus.

As we forced our way off Martin quipped “well it’s all good practice”, which was quite witty for our Mart. The next bus followed shortly, and we crashed against the single door like a tidal wave. Martin and I got up to the front and sat down as the rain started outside. Luckily, it had stopped by the time we got to Kovalum Junction, where we had to walk down to the beach passed the quarry.

No machinery was in use. Rock was flaked off from the face by driving wedges into cracks and the subsequent lumps passed along a “production line” of workers wielding decreasing sized hammers, from sledgehammers to tack hammers with long homemade handles. The resulting rubble was carried away in head-borne baskets.

Back at base at 16:00 hrs. I went down to the beach for a swim with George, leaving Martin to pore over his guidebooks and maps in search of trips to occupy his unplanned extra time in Northern India (between 27/12/1983 when he arrived back in Delhi and 31/12/1983 when he flew back to Blighty).

The swim was the best yet. We wallowed in the surf for 2 hours, body surfing in the bigger breakers under a leaden cloudy sky. We were joined by the English chap who we’d met on the Varanasi to Kathmandu minibus. He was flying to Nairobi in Africa after Christmas.

As usual, the sea seemed to wash away all our troubles as we cavorted and rolled in the turbulence, although by body surfing you were frequently carried aloft by a powerful wave and crashed down on the gravelly beach with resultant grazing. Martin blamed this dumping by the sea for the malady in his arm.

We clambered erect after riding a good wave with brine and sand streaming from our nostrils, grinning inanely and waiting for the next biggie. We returned for the usual culinary delights of the Shangri-La kitchen, hungrily devouring egg curry and fruit laden rice pudding. Sadly, we were soon forced to flee as an English-speaking crowd (Aussies & Yanks) started on the old “where have you been? I’ve been everywhere“, one-upmanship tack. A trip to the beach confirmed that all the cafés were packed with wallies (A person who's company is found to be undesirable or uninspiring, a nerd, geek or loser), so we returned to the lodge with the intention of calling it a night.

We had a brief chat with the Sarge and George suggested that we start on the Christmas rum. It was not too difficult for him to persuade me that it was a good idea and in the twinkling of an eye we were in the Shangri-La armed with two glasses, several cold Thums Up’s and our bottle of Haywoods XXX Indian rum, which appeared to be some sort of industrial solvent flavoured with rum essence.

The Cindys (Two Danish girls unkindly nicknamed after Cinderella’s ugly sisters) came over to twitter before leaving us to the serious business of emptying the bottles. The B52’s came on the cassette player and we had a field day.

There ensued a naked midnight swim, an argument on music and a singing session, much to Martin’s disgust. We went to bed and as we settled down to sleep Martin retaliated by turning on the light to “read”. We were drunk enough to sleep anyway so he had to concede and turn of the dim bulb after a short while.

Dhobi

Above: Martin getting stitched up by the banana vendor and George doing his dhobi.

Sunday 18th December 1983

Breakfast in the Shangri-La was a treat. We had porridge with fruit and honey followed by an onion omelette. George and I set to with our laundry, drawing water from the well for the task. Martin, worried about the disappearance of his towel, discovered that the Sergeant had taken it in as a precaution against the nightly dhobi thieves. Dhobi (English: "washerman") is a caste group of India. Their traditional occupation was washing clothes. The word dhobi is derived from the Hindi word dhona, which means to wash.

We went down to the beach, but although it was warm, there was about 90% cloud cover and it was extremely humid. We took it in turn to gambol and splash in the breakers for a while before drying off on the beach.

Martin opened negotiations with a fruit seller and got more than he bargained for. The wily old crone could spot a mug at half a mile and our Martin was a cert. Before you could say “Jack Robinson”, by means of the classic “sorry, no change” ploy, Martin had half the Indian banana crop for 1983 and the old hag was cackling as she stuffed a crisp new 5 Indian Rupee note (with the inevitable staple holes in it where it had once been stapled in a wad) into her sari.

A crowd gathered as Martin stuffed bunch after bunch of mini bananas into his bulging bag. All the other roving beach traders wanted to offload their wares onto an obviously naïve soap and George and I giggled along with the triumphant hag at Martin’s demise.

We returned to the Shangri-La for a couple of ginger teas and a dose of music on the café’s massive portable cassette player. As the sun broke through the cloud we returned to the beach and spent another few hours splashing in the surf, playing frisbee and haggling with the beach traders.

We were really relaxed now and enjoying our “holiday”. Only Martin still had a cloud over his head, which took the form of a 51-hour train trip to Delhi. This was the price that he had to pay for pre-booking his flights without thinking out his plans.

We had an excellent supper in the Shangri-La, which we decided was the best restaurant yet. I had superb fish curry which comprised of a whole chunky white fish in onion-saturated sauce. The fruit rice pudding followed to completely bloat me out and provide a rare treat for my taste buds.

Our washing was still damp due to the day being so humid and overcast. We profitably exchanged some books in the Shangri-La library and buggered about in our room as dusk set in. As usual the evening mosquito hordes set in to plague Martin and I, and Martin disappeared under a layer of Boots Pharmacy Anti-Insect Gel.

George was well suntanned, and it seemed that the whiter your skin, the more interested the mosquitos were. They didn’t seem to bother the dark-skinned natives. We locked up our room with our padlock, essential travelling kit in Asia where you were usually provided with a cheap, easily breakable padlock as security for your hotel room.

Back in the Shangri-La the light was better than the waxing and waning lightbulb in our room. I was cheered to hear familiar music blaring from the cassette player, in this case the B52’s first album. Music which brought back memories of past parties and trendy clubs in London and Bournemouth. On 10th April 1982 I had been on the New Romantic pilgrimage from London to Bournemouth which culminated with the band Spandau Ballet headlining at the Winter Gardens.

We sat contentedly in the warm tranquil atmosphere, only lacking cold beer to cap our enjoyment. Unfortunately, one had to venture into Trivandrum for alcoholic drinks as they were not available in Kovalum. We intended to stock up on alcoholic beverages for our Christmas celebrations. Thiruvananthapuram, commonly known by its former name Trivandrum, is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala.

The sun has given me a good going over today, firing it’s sizzling rays from behind the cloud cover like a lurking sniper. My skin is hot and red. We sat for a long while before getting bored enough to venture down to the beach where we found a hippy gathering squatting around an entrenched candle. Hashish smoke and the strains of a strummed acoustic guitar drifted from the hairy group.

We went into a restaurant where the staff bid us choose from their varied menu and then, having made our choices, revealed that they only had eggs and mussels in stock. We ate boiled eggs while a soapy American hippy chick related the “horrors” of an 8-hour Indian bus trip. Eight hours without a square meal – how ghastly!

We returned to our wooden slabs for a surprisingly reasonable night’s sleep.

Kerala

Saturday 17th December 1983

We were up at 09:00 hrs. and we performed our ablutions with a reluctance to touch anything and thus become contaminated by it’s grubbiness. We went into the fierce morning sun with little hope of finding a good establishment for breakfast.

Imagine our surprise to find the excellent “Indian Coffee House” where, in a clean environment, we were served proper coffee by a clean uniformed waiter in an elaborate fan-topped turban. After a bit of initial misunderstanding/order anticipation game we also got a good breakfast of egg on toast.

We collected our bags from our accommodation, and due to a breakdown in communication we got away with paying only 25 Indian Rupees for our triple room. We walked through the darker-skinned sarong-clad crowd to the bus stand and joined the fighting mob battling to get on to the Kovalum bus at Stand 17.

About 30 minutes later we were in paradise! We discovered that Kovalam in Kerala, near the southern tip of India, was a calm fishing village clustered around its crescent beaches and backed by a sea of cascading palms. The “Sergeant” led us from the bus, through palm trees and tapioca plants, passed the paddy fields to his lodge, the Sreevas.

We filled in the hotel registration book over a drink in a nearby café and the Sergeant gave us a rundown of the do’s and don’ts in this exotic location. He warned us about theft, dangerous drugs and dodgy undercurrents in the bay (people had been drowned). He told us where the showers and laundry facilities were.

We paid for 10 nights in advance, which cost us 77 Indian Rupees each. Quickly we got organised in our hut and set off down to Lighthouse Beach, which was 50 metres away. Lighthouse Beach is widely regarded as the best beach in the State of Kerala and has an iconic 30-meters-high lighthouse, standing on rocky platform on the southern end of the beach.

“We came in search of paradise” in the words of the Bounty advert (Bounty is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars, Incorporated. The chocolate bar consists of a coconut flavoured filling -Desiccated Coconut (21%) - coated with milk chocolate. It was introduced in 1951 in the United Kingdom and Canada.) and we found it on Kovalum Beach.

Beach cafés did not corrupt the white sandy strip, framed between two rocky promontories, and dotted liberally with palm trees. The area was being commercialised rapidly but was not too bad at present. A number of new buildings were under construction, so give it a couple of years…

Scantily clad and totally naked women took our interest as they swanned about, while their male counterparts sported sarongs (a table cloth affair wrapped around their loins) and looked as if they thought they were lifeguards.

The local trade seemed to be rock quarrying and breaking up large lumps of rock into small bits for road construction. This was achieved by a lot of mainly women with hammers. On our journey in, as the bus approached Kovalum, the road was lined with palm woven sunshades protecting the locals from the intense sun, who sat hammering melon-sized rocks until they had a basket full of walnut-sized lumps.

On the beach we were quickly spotted as new arrivals by the local traders who descended upon us offering sarongs and peanuts (“monkey nuts” in shells). We resisted these persistent blighters and went swimming in the sea in a shift system: one of us would watch the valuables while the other two gambolled in the surf.

It was great. The warm, salty water seemed to wash away all our troubles and the “contamination” of our travels in India. Our spirits soared as the waves smashed around us and we sat on the sand drying in the warm sun.

We went to the Volga Restaurant as it was totally free of other Westerners, to have a drink and get respite from the harsh sun’s glare. Loud Western rock and pop music blared to compete with neighbouring establishments, and we had to bellow to get the owner to turn down the volume.

A wander into the next bay revealed that the Lighthouse Beach was the best because this beach was not as picturesque and seemed to be patronised by the freakier element of beach bums. By the central outcrop of rocks that divided the two beaches crude fishing boats, looking like Viking longboats, were hauled up onto the beach.

Fishermen had their nets spread out on the beach to dry and 4 chattering girls carried dry palm fronds in bundles on their heads. We returned to our room in Sreevas Lodge and moved on to the Shangri-La Restaurant for supper. I had an egg curry and a beautiful rice pudding with all manner of exotic tropical fruits in it.

After eating we started out on a walk into Kovalum village but didn’t get very far, ending up sipping black coffee (“milk not possible”, we were told) in a posh hotel. A native band with electric guitars played Dire Straits song “The Sultans of Swing” followed by “The First Cut is the Deepest”. We took our leave when they stopped for a break.

Earlier in the evening we became re-acquainted with the “Cinderella Sisters” from Chitwan. Back at the Sreevas I had a cooling shower before joining the others in a fairly restless night on the punishingly hard beds.

Mangalore

Friday 16th December 1983

We arrived at Mangalore at 01:30 hrs, which was early as we had been informed that the arrival time was going to be 03:00 hrs. We got an autorickshaw to the railway station for 4 Indian Rupees and dossed down by the Ticket Office.

Mangalore is a major port city located on the western coast of India at in Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka State formerly (until 1973) Mysore. It has an average elevation of 22 metres (72 feet) above mean sea level. The city is the administrative headquarters of Dakshina Kannada district and is the state's largest coastal urban centre.

Our short glimpse of Mangalore gave us the impression that it was a shithole along Gorakpur lines. No wonder that there was so little about it in the Lonely Planet “India” guidebook. At 03:00 hrs. the Ticket Box opened, and George and Martin steamed in at the front while I “kept dog” (To keep watch, or lookout, ready to report) on the bags.

The trip to Trivandrum in Kerala cost 45 Indian Rupees and the train left at 04:15 hrs. When we boarded the train, I thought that the interior of the train carriage had been stripped for cleaning, it was so bare and basic. The seats were hard wooden benches with a high straight wooden back. The gay yellow paint did nothing to lessen the discomfort as the train rattled through the day. Throughout the journey the scenery remained the same, thick palm forests with grassy swards underneath and modern-looking houses with red tiled roofs.

The natives wore gaily coloured garb and looked more affluent than their Northern counterparts. Every now and then we would pass over the wide inlet of a river on low sturdy bridges. Paddy fields appeared more frequently in the gaps between the dense palms as we went south. The only other crop to be seen was a vivid green grass-like plant that covered many acres and was tall enough to obscure the bodies of people walking through it. The journey was thoroughly miserable. Outside the heat was almost unbearable, but when(!) the train was moving a pleasant breeze came in through the barred windows to supplement the fans on board.

The train was long and as we were in the last carriage, we copped out on all of the goodies available on station platforms along the way. I finished reading “At One with the Sea” by single-handed yachtswoman Naomi James (1979 book: In September 1977, 28-year-old Naomi James left Dartmouth on a 53-foot yacht, alone except for a small kitten called Boris. With barely a couple of seasons' sailing experience behind her, she set out to sail round the world - non-stop, single-handed, and in record time).

I started reading “Flashman in the Great Game”, a 1975 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the fifth of the Flashman novels. It was a book that my friend James Bascran had sent me. Martin and George sat quietly, Martin marginally more comfortable on his inflatable pillow, fidgeted with impatience at every halt.

George and I had learned to sit things out without tutting and sighing as there was no hurrying Indian public transport. George was feeling run down and a couple of cold sores had erupted on his face. We eventually chugged into Trivandrum at 18:50 hrs. Thiruvananthapuram, commonly known by its former name Trivandrum, is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the largest city in Kerala and India’s largest city in the deep south.

Referred to by Mahatma Gandhi as the "Evergreen city of India", the city is characterised by its undulating terrain of low coastal hills. We clambered from the train and sweated in the darkness as we fought our way with our kit up Mahatma Ghandi Road. The Lonely Planet “India” guidebook stitched us up and we spent an hour trudging about looking for the recommended International Tourist Home, which certainly wasn’t “opposite the General Post Office”.

All of the hotels had “No Vacancies” so we made our angry way back towards the railway station. We got a rough triple room in the Statue Lodge for 30 Indian Rupees and chucked our kit in before doing the rounds of Trivandrum’s eating establishments. This only increased our fury. Restaurant after restaurant failed to understand what we were saying or jumped the gun and ran off half-cocked midway through our ordering to bring back the wrong stuff. We eventually got a nasty set meal and did the snack rounds, supplementing our diet with peanut brittle, biscuits (glucose) and cooking bananas!

We walked dejectedly back to our smelly room with a begging wretch in tow. “Master, master”, she beseeched as she tottered along behind us, but to no avail. Also, on the streets a mob with a stack of tea towels on their heads walked up and down singing and chanting.

Back at the hotel we slumped into exhausted slumber on our beds.

INRI

Thursday 15th December 1983

We took breakfast in the Tourist Hostel (Chit-Chat) café as usual, and as usual The Police (rock band) provided the musical accompaniment. We wandered up to the cinema which should have changed to screen a new film, but we were misled as “Escape to Victory” was still showing.

We had a browse in a hotel bookshop on the waterfront and I bought a “Teach Yourself German” book to usefully kill time in future. It had pictures which made it easy to follow and rekindled my knowledge from my German language lessons at Isleworth Grammar School in Isleworth. I had got a D at O-Level (A, B, & C were passes) so the terrifying Mr Stevenson had not done a great job.

We walked a large circuitous route around the outskirts of Panaji where crude houses were spaced out on lush lawns in the shade of palm trees. Locals called “hello bubba”, as we passed by. Water buffalos with long, red-painted horns grazed near the dwellings as we followed the red dirt track passed many Catholic cross monuments bearing the inscription “INRI”.

The letters “INRI” are initials for the Latin title that Pontius Pilate had written over the head of Jesus Christ on the cross (John 19:19). Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire.

The words were “Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm.” Latin uses “I” instead of the English “J”, and “V” instead of “U” (i.e., Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum). The English translation is "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." The Early Church adopted the first letters of each word of this inscription “INRI” as a symbol. Throughout the centuries INRI has appeared in many paintings of the crucifixion.

At a chemist (pharmacy) we took the opportunity to stock up on medical supplies, especially Lomotil tablets for diarrhoea (Lomotil is a combination of two medicines: Diphenoxylate and Atropine, which slows down gastrointestinal movement and bowel function. It also relaxes the gastrointestinal muscles to prevent spasms).

We made it back to the Chit-Chat just in time for the dinner time spin of The Police vinyl LP. I had a prawn curry for a change, and it was very good in taste and value. Including rice, it was only 8 Indian Rupees.

Today on our walk we had stopped to watch some road construction in progress. This was a very crude process. A layer of stones had been spread out and compressed by a steam roller, and on to this bed was sprayed a thin surface layer of runny liquid tar. The labourers then hurled loose gravel onto this wet film of tar with gusto and great clouds of dust.

This was all accompanied by much hooting and commotion as the road was still open to traffic and every now and then a lorry would zip across between the shouting workers. As usual, most of the donkey work was done by women.

After lunch we collected our bags from the lobby of the Flamingo Hotel, had a coffee in the Tourist Hostel Chit-Chat café by the bus station and reported to the bus terminal at 15:30 hrs. The bus to Mangalore was in and despite a bit of misdirection from “helpful” locals, we got on the right one.

It was indeed a luxury bus with brown imitation leather reclining seats and leg room. George and I sat behind a Dutch bloke with a hearing defect and his girlfriend, while Martin sat next to an obnoxious local who oiked him out of the window seat, backed by the logic of an illogical numbering system.

In front of Martin was a pair of German beach bums. One was a 6’6” exhibition smoker and the other was a middle-aged wretch who was trendily clad in youthful beachwear and clinging on to the vestiges of youth for grim death!

The bus trip was fast and just too bumpy to comfortably sleep. At the Goa-Karnataka Border there was a Customs search of the bus looking for smuggled alcohol. There was only one enjoyable aspect of the journey and that was the snack stops where we gorged on boiled eggs, bananas and tea.

Horvem

Wednesday 14th December 1983

When we awoke the shower was full of Indians and the toilets were in full flood, running out along the corridor between the rooms. We gathered up our gear and moved out. Luckily, we found a good room in the Flamingo Hotel where we got a triple room with an ensuite shower for 85 Indian Rupees. We steamed into the shower to wash away the contamination of the Imperial Hotel.

This room was actually fragrant and roomy, with a clean carpet, so we felt human again. We had breakfast in the Tourist Hotel where our policy of not tipping the waiters was rewarded with slow service.

Martin set off to the Post Office to attempt to send home his exposed camera film (Martin was a keen photographer and had taken a lot more pictures than us) leaving George and I to indulge in a favourite pastime – the flicks.

At 10:30 hrs. we sat down to “Escape to Victory” at the Ashok Cinema, a 1981 American sports war film directed by John Huston and starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow and Pelé. It was better than I expected and proved the usual morale boost. Michael Caine and Silvester Stallone led a cast of aging footballers in an authentically portrayed, if farfetched, Nazi prison camp drama.

Afterwards we rendezvoused with Martin back at the Tourist Hotel at 13:00 hrs. George and I had a beer and tricked Martin into getting a meal. His weird sense of one-upmanship forbade him from eating unless we had eaten ourselves. George told him that we had already eaten an egg curry and thus, safe from the prospect of our ridicule (we couldn’t call him a greedy bastard) he ordered and egg biriyani.

This he promptly ruined by ladling on a viciously hot red chutney (This very special Goan Chutney is called Horvem and comprises of Red and/or Green Chillies, Ginger, Garlic, Tamarind, Coriander and Cumin seeds, Turmeric, Jaggery and coconut. Jaggery, also called GUR (GUDA), is traditional form of raw sugar or unrefined sugar derived from sugarcane juice.) which caused him to leave half the meal and grumble for long into the afternoon.

“Look before you leap (or try before you buy) in future”, I warned him, probably to no avail. Last night he had “cut off his nose to spite his face” by grumbling because he was still hungry after a mammoth meal, and after we took him to a café to satisfy his greed, he waited until we had ordered an egg curry each before beginning to chortle at our greed.

He was quite happy to look on, enviously and drooling, at us eating, consoled by the fact that we had given him victory in his silly little game. In fact George and I had adjusted to a much smaller daily food intake and lost considerable weight on our travels, the triumph of activity and exploration over hunger. Now we had spent as much as him and had indulged in two meals and this was a triumph for our podgy chum!

We drifted back lifelessly to the hotel, our weariness fuelled by the mugginess of the damp atmosphere. We slept until 16:30 hrs. and went on a lack lustre walkabout. We ascended the hill overlooking the town, passing some poorer, home-made houses and a temple-like building that looked like that at Bohdnath in Nepal.

This was probably the Maruti Temple which is situated on top of the Altinho hill overlooking the Fontainhas district in Panaji. It is dedicated to lord Hanuman, the monkey god and enshrines Lord Hanuman as the presiding deity. The Maruti Temple is also beautifully lit up at night and as it is brightly lit the temple is visible from a distance.

Lord Hanuman is a Hindu deity who is an ardent devotee of Rama, a central character in the Indian epic Ramayana. A general among the vanaras, Hanuman is an incarnation of the divine and a follower of Lord Rama in the struggle against the demon king Ravana.

Children played cricket and women slammed their wet washing onto stones to clean them as we sauntered passed. At the top of the hill there appeared to be college campuses interspersed with rubbish tips where pigs and crows battled for prize scraps.

Back in town we had a Nescafé in a clean bar and wondered why most café and restaurant owners, as well as hoteliers, made no effort to keep their premises clean or even looking nice. We returned to our hotel room and George changed some cash with the receptionist.

Martin and George set to rubbing neat Dettol on their wounds. A major component of our travel first aid kit was a bottle of this iconic Dettol Antiseptic Liquid which was good for First Aid Antiseptic wound cleaning for cuts, grazes, bites and stings to kill germs and protect against infection. Also for Personal Hygiene this versatile liquid can be used to treat pimples and dandruff. Martin’s new flip-flops had cut between his toes and George had several cold sores.

Supper was taken, as per usual, in the Tourist Hostel to the regular diet of The Police rock band music and Western disco hits. George returned to our room with Martin and I went browsing in a couple of hotel book shops.

The night was hot, humid and sweaty so we left the ceiling fan on. I was reading Robert Ludlum’s “Road to Gandolfo” (The Road to Gandolfo is a story by Michael Shepherd (a pen name used by Robert Ludlum) published in 1975 about General MacKenzie Hawkins ("The Hawk"), a military legend and Army veteran. He defaces an important Chinese memorial as a result of being drugged by a Chinese general and is later kicked out of the Army).

Meanwhile George was reading an Irving Wallace book and Martin slapped himself and cursed under assault from a myriad of biting, bloodthirsty insects.