Going to Varkala gave us a pleasant little group of 5 (2 French, 2 English and a German) who all stayed in the same Bamboo Village accommodation as neighbours to each other. With it costing us only 200 Rupees per room, it was dirt cheap and very welcoming. This became our chill out town to relax by the beach, have a couple of drinks and just generally relax till we figured out our next plan, whether it be as a group or not.

On our first trip to the beach, all we wanted to do was to jump into the sea and feel refreshed from the blaring heat. As we started running towards the waves we could hear whistling from the distance. We decided to ignore such noise as it was obviously nothing to do with us. We were wrong. It turns out that it was precisely for us as the waters were ‘dangerous’ and we were putting our lives at risk. To us Westerners who were all capable of swimming, this sounded completely ridiculous. But eventually after having had one of us by the arm and threatening to call the police, I decided to pretend to wave at someone in the distance and run towards complete nothingness as to avoid any confrontation regarding this matter. The other guys were stopped and firmly told about the risks involved in swimming between June and August. Of course these words of warning and threats weren’t to stop us from our sea antics.

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