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.
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