Hi everybody

India is not a country: India is an experience. Every state is a different country and there are 29 of them! There are 16 languages and over 300 dialects. The state Diana (my no-longer-virtual buddy) and I are visiting right now, embraces Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism and Judaism, and has temples, churches, mosques and synagogues.

Kerala: Renowned for its tropical climate, it stretches over 550 kilometres on the south-west coast of the sub continent. It is, basically, a narrow strip of land – its width never exceeding 100 kilometres and getting as narrow as 12 kilometres in some places. On the western side of Kerala is the Arabian Sea, and on the eastern side, the hills and mountains of the Western Ghats separate Kerala from the state of Tamil Nadu.

We decided to start from the costal village of Varkala, specifically from its beautiful white beach cocooned under the enormous red stone cliffs. The village itself is built on top of the cliffs and there was barely a soul on the beach, apart from a few tourists like us struggling on the hot sand. We wanted to swim, but the sea here is notorious for its strong currents and for the number of tourists who have died trying to beat them. Comforted by the presence of lifeguards, I finally ventured in and tried to swim. But even though I stayed close to shore, it was a struggle and, as my swimming skills leave much to be desired, I soon gave up. On top of the cliff, the village restaurants stood like soldiers watching me and mocking my silly tourist antics!

Before long we decided to climb the steep flight of steps dug in the cliff. We chose a restaurant called Sunset: This would be our first ever (real) sunset together! As we waited for the sun to do its thing, we saw two eagles gliding over the bay beneath us. Sometimes an air current pushed them up just a few feet away from us.

The sun never set that day – it just faded away in a thick cloud. And then, it started to rain. Heavily. Soaking wet, we rushed to our hotel. As we skid round the corner we bumped into three large elephants dressed in red and gold garments, each of which had two men holding a holy icon. There were a group of percussion players dressed in white, yellow and red playing strange rhythms as they accompanied the elephants to the beach, quite unperturbed by the rain.

Diana, who had never seen a real elephant before, experienced a triple jaw drop! She could not believe how big these three male Asian elephants were!

One u-turn later and we were following them back down to the beach, where a small fire ceremony was now being held, accompanied by Hindu chants. The icon was placed in a temporary temple made of bamboo and banana leaves and the holy elephants got their offerings while the locals worshiped the icon in the temple.

I asked what the occasion was and was told that it was "Temple Festival". The rain got stronger, and I watched it drip like red blood off the dyed saris on top of the elephants. The ceremony had to be interrupted until the rain calmed down. We dashed up to the hotel, showered, put on dry clothes and waited for the rain to stop. When it did, we marched right down to the steep flight of steps for the third time that day. The festival was about to start…

Take care,

Dery