Konakulam

Or to put it properly cone-ah-cool-um. no wonder the guy at the train ticket office looked at me like I was deranged! Anyway it was only a short hop. I phoned a hotel from my book from the station and they had a room. A rickshaw there was 12/-! Typical hotel for Indians but it was clean enough. The book said that the beach was five minutes away. I think they meant by jet! I found it in the end. 10km of beautiful beach and all that was on it was me and a crab. I got bored eventually and it was too hot (over a hundred degrees). I went back to my room, pottered around then went into town. After filling in a whole three minutes by walking round twice I went for a shave. Must have been bored if that was the highlight of the day! My old faithful flip flops were worn paper thin and it was starting to hurt walking over stones. So I treated myself to a super-duper pair of sandals for the price of 300/-. It's been like walking on air. Why on earth didn't I get some earlier? I was walking down the road and saw a shop up a lane that sold beer. Four cold bottles in my bag and I went and sat on my verandah to watch the sun set. Under the hotel was a restaurant. No one spoke English so I just said food and he brought some. It was delicious. I asked for more but not same, same. (My Indian has really came on!) He brought more and that was even better. I nearly had anothe plateful when my bill was only 20/- (25p).
Next morning was a quick(ish) breakfast and yet another train ride. During all that time there I never saw another white face, or even a dirty brown one like mine.