Varkala and the sin-destroying beach

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 A few weeks ago, with moderate encouragement from my sister, I found myself at the seaside town and health resort of Varkala in Kerala. After an hour’s taxi ride from Trivandrum we found ourselves at Papanasam Beach (Paap = Sin, Nasam/ Nasham = Destroy).















There are two legends about this beach. The first is that Brahma (creator of the universe in Hindu mythology) instructed a Pandyan king to build a temple here to wash away sins. The second legend is that Narada, at the request of some pilgrims who confessed wrongdoing, threw his valkalam (piece of cloth) and it landed here where pilgrims now come to dip in the holy waters.
This post is about the sandy beach and the lovely surroundings which you cannot miss. A more tongue-in-cheek take on Varkala is saved till my next post!
 


If slowing down is what you need (and I sure did) then this was the perfect place for it.









Luckily we arrived towards the end of the tourist season so it was less busy than usual. We still bumped into loads of foreign tourists and some domestic ones.







The view from my hotel room was something like this.












This living rock near the southern cliff was home to a colony of mussels.









I've always loved the variety of bananas you get in south India and Varkala is no different.










Time slowed down a bit as we sipped fruit shakes and found shelter from the afternoon heat.









In the cooler evenings, the sunset at Papanasam beach brought lots more people to the beach.







The dotted lights in the background (below) are fishermen moored in the sea waiting for the fresh catch.






Time for contemplation as I enjoyed a sky full of twinkling stars . 







It was a world away from the daily churn of life. I feel I could do with many more days like this!

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