Nearly all but not quite. Some open for booking closer to the day of travel and one train that we want opens 30 days from today. This is a conveyance called the Railmotor which travels from Kalka to Simla and back on the narrow gauge line into the Himalayan foothills. D's first attempt at booking does not complete and by the time he has logged back into the system 2 of the 8 seats available have been taken. The second attempt works and we have our booking.
By now it is time for breakfast. Chickpea curry, puttu and banana fritters. Puttu is made from rice flour. Once again we have a large flask of black tea and lots of fresh fruit. Hyacinth comes to chat and tells us a bit of the history of the beach house. There is no pressure for us to check out as her next guests do not arrive until quite late this evening. A good job really as our washing has only just gone up on the line to dry. We take the chance to repack, making sure that the things we will need on our overnight train trip are ready to hand.
Once the admin is sorted we take a stroll along the beach in the opposite direction. There are more rocks and pools this way and different crabs. These are green or black with red lower parts and there are swarms of them. We also see a Western Reef Egret and repeat the Whimbrel/ Curlew debate. And there are chaps diving but we still do not know what for. We keep forgetting to ask Hyacinth. A local lady is using her hands to scoop sand off the beach into a large sack. When it is full it is too heavy for her to lift. Using sign langauge she asks D to help which he does. Once the sack is lifted she has no difficulty balancing it on her head and walking away hands free. Just wait until the shovel and wheelbarrow arrive here.
On the way back to the house two chaps have just hauled their boat up onto the beach and are extracting small, sardine like fish from their net. They are happy for D to take photos but don't have much English beyond Good Morning. At the house we just sit in the shade, reading and blogging. There is a power outage. Hyacinth has explained that these usually start about now and become more frequent over the next couple of months. The only other thing to do besides the beach is to visit Theyyamdancing ceremonies, a Hindu religious rite that the area is famous for. There were none of these happening locally and we didn't facy a 60km round trip in an auto during darkness so maybe another time. We would certainly come back to Hyacinth's place if we are back in the area. We may just have found the most relaxing place in India.
Our auto arrived promptly at three and we set out for Kannur Main station and our first overnight trip of this visit. Our train is at the platform and we watch the man pasting up the charts. A quick check for our names gives the expected result and we prepare to board. This train is quite short with four Unreserved coaches, four Sleepers and a single AC coach - in this case a fairly rare combination of AC two tier and AC three tier. All of the doors have been unlocked except for our coach and as it nears departure time we start to worry. Then D discovers that the AC3 door at the far end of our coach is open so we can board that way. The coach is like an oven but a man appears and switches on the AC. Boosted by the overhead fans the temperature soon comes down. We have a pair of side berths 17 and 18 so we each get to sit by the window. In fact we can sit anywhere that we like as apart from us the only occupant is the TTE. D takes the chance to get photos highlighting the differences between AC2 and AC3. You never know when you might need them.
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