Varkala continues

Ayurvedic clinic & patient

During the two weeks we stayed in Varkala we arranged 3 days of Ayurvedic massage. Everywhere along the cliffs the massages are offered so we first visited a few different rooms and made the choice to have it at Kairali Ayurvedic Clinic. The owners are family of our landlady at the moment; I got massages from her sister and Jaakko got treated by her husband (aka our landlord). Very excited about our first massage we woke at 8 am and walked without having any breakfast (was requested) across the silent sandy street to the clinic. We both disappeared in seperate rooms and had to undress completely. The treatment started with a head/hair massage, followed up by a full body massage and ended with a facemassage and cleansing mask. The oily massage works with energies of the body and makes you feel very relaxed. Next to the unusual fact that a stranger is touching your naked body another discomforting but at the same time hilarious aspect is the washing afterwards. She makes you sit down on a chair in the bathoom and washes and soaps you, a bit stunned with what's happening you cannot do much more than passively undergo the finalizing of the treatment, feeling like a very old disabled person. The massage itself was good and pleasant though I hope she didnt mess up my inner balance because I felt extremely tired and a little sick and dizzy. Furthermore it is great fun to try to roll from 'on your back' to 'on your tummy' when you are completely covered in thick oil!

Varkala has a nice market, all colorful hippie-stuff from Hampi, Radjastan, Kashmir and Nepal. Batik bedsheets, patchwork walldecorations, sarongs, bags, printed shirts with hindu-gods and funny multicolored alibaba's and fishermanspants (the unmissable baggy diaperpants in which you find almost every young tourist in Asia - again another 'freedom'-centred subculture seems to have fallen into cliches and dresscode).

We bought a few nice items and decided to send a package with useless clothes and other things home. Now with less weight in our backpacks we happily continue our trip, with in the back of our mind the next 'big' flight we will have; Kochin (Kerala) - Delhi. We exactly have a month to still spend in Kerala so up north we go to Alappuzha; Venice of the East.