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.
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