It's January 2012 and I can't believe that my Big Adventure is nearly over!!! Only one more day in Kerala then it's back to Dehli for the night and finally back home to the UK!
Yesterday I moved to the hotel nearer the North Cliff, delighting in the fact that I could just step out of my room and cross the road, then walk down the steps to the beach. However, the weather had changed quite drastically and there had been heavy rainfall the night before resulting in an extremely overcast sky and a blustery wind with more rain on the way! Apparently, this was all the tail end of a cyclone going on in Chennai!!
ow I know it might sound selfish and shallow, but all I could think about was the fact that my tan was going to fade before I got back to England, as well as the fact that if I got caught out in the rain, my hair was going to be extremely frizzy for the New Years Festivities!!!
I spent the afternoon in one of the restaurants with my new friends Dee and Brid, (two nurses from Ireland) then managed to make it back to my room just before the heavens opened again and the heavy rain plummeted from above. Thankfully it stopped just in time for me to get changed and make it back out to another restaurant for a New Years Eve dinner with Dee and Brid and a few more of their friends from their Yoga group.
I felt that as it was a celebration, I should really push the boat out and have something a bit more exciting than my usual Chinese Vegetable noodles or Fried Egg and chips, so I dared to order something called MoMos, which were absolutely delicious! They are basically just like steamed dumplings/dim sum and I could have kicked myself for not trying them out weeks ago!!
The evening was lovely: great food and great 'new friends'. As we all sat and chatted I looked around the table thinking that all six of us had been total strangers, from five different countries, (Ireland, England, USA, Switzerland and Germany) all united by two things: India and speaking English!!!
But at 11 o'clock we all said our goodbyes; the others didn't want a late night as they were all getting up in the early hours of the morning to go to see 'Amma, The Hugging Mama' at her Ashram.
And so after an exchange of e mails and telephone numbers and promises to 'come visit' I made it back to my room in time to see the New Year in with a phone call to a friend back home in London.
After the phone conversation I sat on my bed and thought back on all that had gone on for me that year and the events that led up to me taking this trip out here. How scared I was to be by myself again and I realised that I didn't actually care that I was physically alone on the stroke of midnight, but I was in fact really content to be where I was and strangely enough I didn't feel alone at all?! And then with perfect timing, my phone bleeped and I opened a text message from my brother Daniel wishing me' a happy new year' and I just had to smile.
This morning I woke up and the sun was back!!! I hurriedly got dressed, slapped on my suntan cream and threw some breakfast down my throat at one of the local restaurants before racing down the cliff steps to the beach.
I spent most of the day on the beach, every now and then I would remember that there was in fact one more temple I was going to visit nearby, but then I would look around at the white sand and the blue waters of the Arabian Sea and think: "Nah".
By the end of the day I had a few more freckles to add to my collection and a dinner companion - Rob from Essex. We went to The Little Tibet Restaurant where I had a plate of Momos!!
Oh what a lovely day ......
Yesterday I moved to the hotel nearer the North Cliff, delighting in the fact that I could just step out of my room and cross the road, then walk down the steps to the beach. However, the weather had changed quite drastically and there had been heavy rainfall the night before resulting in an extremely overcast sky and a blustery wind with more rain on the way! Apparently, this was all the tail end of a cyclone going on in Chennai!!
ow I know it might sound selfish and shallow, but all I could think about was the fact that my tan was going to fade before I got back to England, as well as the fact that if I got caught out in the rain, my hair was going to be extremely frizzy for the New Years Festivities!!!
I spent the afternoon in one of the restaurants with my new friends Dee and Brid, (two nurses from Ireland) then managed to make it back to my room just before the heavens opened again and the heavy rain plummeted from above. Thankfully it stopped just in time for me to get changed and make it back out to another restaurant for a New Years Eve dinner with Dee and Brid and a few more of their friends from their Yoga group.
I felt that as it was a celebration, I should really push the boat out and have something a bit more exciting than my usual Chinese Vegetable noodles or Fried Egg and chips, so I dared to order something called MoMos, which were absolutely delicious! They are basically just like steamed dumplings/dim sum and I could have kicked myself for not trying them out weeks ago!!
The evening was lovely: great food and great 'new friends'. As we all sat and chatted I looked around the table thinking that all six of us had been total strangers, from five different countries, (Ireland, England, USA, Switzerland and Germany) all united by two things: India and speaking English!!!
But at 11 o'clock we all said our goodbyes; the others didn't want a late night as they were all getting up in the early hours of the morning to go to see 'Amma, The Hugging Mama' at her Ashram.
And so after an exchange of e mails and telephone numbers and promises to 'come visit' I made it back to my room in time to see the New Year in with a phone call to a friend back home in London.
After the phone conversation I sat on my bed and thought back on all that had gone on for me that year and the events that led up to me taking this trip out here. How scared I was to be by myself again and I realised that I didn't actually care that I was physically alone on the stroke of midnight, but I was in fact really content to be where I was and strangely enough I didn't feel alone at all?! And then with perfect timing, my phone bleeped and I opened a text message from my brother Daniel wishing me' a happy new year' and I just had to smile.
This morning I woke up and the sun was back!!! I hurriedly got dressed, slapped on my suntan cream and threw some breakfast down my throat at one of the local restaurants before racing down the cliff steps to the beach.
I spent most of the day on the beach, every now and then I would remember that there was in fact one more temple I was going to visit nearby, but then I would look around at the white sand and the blue waters of the Arabian Sea and think: "Nah".
By the end of the day I had a few more freckles to add to my collection and a dinner companion - Rob from Essex. We went to The Little Tibet Restaurant where I had a plate of Momos!!
Oh what a lovely day ......
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