A Beach Tourist Experience

A Day at the Tourist Resort – Kerala, January 1999

This follows-on from The Streets of Trivandrum. We arrived at the beach resort guesthouse and had intended to spend just one night there before going off travelling. But the journey had been unexpectedly tiring so we decided to have a lazy day before setting off.

Breakfast with Doreen

We came down to breakfast and met Doreen. In her dressing gown and glasses she was an expert on India. She had been many times and knew all about it.

Another couple from our flight came and joined us. It seems they had been taken under Doreen’s wing the evening before and had been shown the only good place to eat. Doreen was a bit put out to find that that was where we had eaten too.

No one was allowed to tell a story except Doreen. She was somewhat peeved to hear, too, upon announcing grandly and authoritatively that 1997 had been the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, that we had been at the anniversary celebrations in Delhi. I tried to relate a tale about it.

‘Oh, I must get a fruit juice’, interjected Doreen, ‘Excuse me, can I have a fruit juice?’ I got through my story in three instalments, despite all attempts by Doreen to derail the flow, to the embarrassment of the other couple, should they show any interest or was it politic not to? I didn’t care, I was determined not to let her get away with her rudeness.

We noticed that evening that Doreen and her husband were at their favourite table (for she had told us they always got their favourite table) in their favourite restaurant. Alone.

A Lazy Day

Today was a lazy day, we spent almost the entire day sitting in the ‘German Bakery’; this was a beach café, rather basic, which seemed to have relatively low prices and sell Austrian cakes.

We lunched on fried fish pieces, OK but not special, and a few glasses of ‘ginger ale’; this seemed to be ground fresh ginger topped up with water – possible not too sterile water – and it tasted like granny’s ginger beer, excellent!

The story continues with The Fishing Village.