After six hours, four buses and a very heated argument with the auto rickshaw driver, we arrived at the Southernmost tip of India, Cape Comorin in the town Kanyakumari. We hauled our backpacks around a small strip full of hotels working separately to find a vacancy, our cheapy room was up five flights of stairs and at the end of a very long search. After much needed showers we headed out to the seafront to see the massive crowd drawer that is the point where the three seas (Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean) meet.
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| From Cape Comorin, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India |
It was almost impossible, well it was impossible to see any real difference from sea level but I guess the colour did change further out to sea... The rocky beach front was lined with small stalls selling a huge range of sea shell curtains, lampshades and plenty of unadorned shells too – having dived and seen them in the sea where they should be it wasn't all that nice to see so many beautiful things out of their rightful home.
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| From Cape Comorin, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India |
We joined the throngs of holidaying Indians, got some steamed peanuts and hot beans and walked further along the coastline to a point near a rather ugly viewing tower which looked a lot like a car park without any space for cars. We sat and watched the sun set behind some clouds waiting for the sky to go dark before leaving our concrete seat in search of some dinner – curried aubergine and chapatti.
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| From Cape Comorin, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India |
We set the alarm for 6am the next morning, woke to see more clouds obscuring the sun rise and promptly went back to sleep until 8.30. We spent the morning wandering around the small bustling town taking pictures, trying to get in a temple – DENIED! - and feeling hot. I went back to the hotel room to cool down while Djalma trekked over to the train station to book our tickets onto the next town. We spent the afternoon reading and sleeping in our room before heading out for lunch and then back for more snoozing. You may have noticed that I am a hotel hermit between the hours of 10am and 4pm when it is just too hot to be wandering around towns looking at stuff that we can quite easily see at cooler times of the day. We went down to a sunrise viewing area to see the temple and a big statue of some writer before leaving the wee smell behind and heading further down the coast to find somewhere quieter and less fragrant, we stopped by the huge pink memorial to Gandhi on the way. Classy.
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| From Cape Comorin, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India |
The sun set behind more clouds so we didn't see it slip below the horizon line but we sat for two hours on the sandy part just behind the protective rock wall that lined the shore. The sea was rough, but that didn't stop one middle aged guy from clambering down the rocks to try and fill his bottle with the sea water when the waves came up, despite staying away from the spray most of the time he actually managed a third of a litre getting a good drenching, it was excellent seaside comedy.
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| From Cape Comorin, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India |
After dinner which was not prawn Malaberi much to my disgust – Tamils are mostly pure vegetarian and despite bordering three seas the town did not have that much fresh fish on offer and no prawns that I could find - we got our bags from the hotel and walked slowly in the direction of the train station for our overnight ride to Ramaswaram the old Southern tip of India.
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