Well, not quite breakfast in Varkala. India wakes up slowly, and when I walked down to the cliff walk for breakfast at 7.30 AM most places were still closed.
I finally found one with some movement and I asked if they were open. Yes, they said, come on in. But once I tried to place my order only coffee was available. No food until 8 AM.
Today was a travel day. I ordered an Uber to go to an airport I can’t even pronounce the name of: Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, about an hour south of Varkala. After some confusion (there are two airports, the driver told me), we arrived at the domestic terminal on the opposite side of the airport from the International Terminal. Everything went smoothly, IndoGo had sent me the boarding passes via email and also in their app earlier this morning, and soon we were off for the first leg of the day to Bangalore.
The flight was smooth and on time, and I had time for lunch in Bangalore before the next leg, to Goa. That flight left early and arrived early, and I was in the taxi to my hotel before the scheduled arrival time.
I had booked a guest house in Palolem in South Goa, about an hour’s drive from the airport, and I just made it there in time to enjoy a beer followed by dinner on the beach.
A long day of travel, but everything went according to plan with no delays or any other problems. Apart from the missed breakfast.
India and Sri Lanka 2026 — all posts
- Day 1 — 24 Hours to Mumbai
- Day 2 — First Morning in Mumbai
- Day 3 — Exploring Mumbai
- Dhobi Ghat: Mumbai’s Laundromat
- Day 4 — Sightseeing in Colombo: One Day is Enough
- A Short History of Ceylon
- Day 5 — Kandy: Moving into the Mountains
- Day 6 — Moving on to Ella
- Day 7 — Hike and Sunstroke
- Tea in Sri Lanka: From a Blight in 1869 to Four Million Cups a Day
- Day 8 — Nine Arches Bridge
- Day 9 — Tuktuk Tour Around Ella
- Day 10 — Time to Leave Ella
- Orphans of Udawalawe: Inside Sri Lanka’s Elephant Transit Home
- Day 11 — Safari and Galle Fort
- Day 12 — Onwards to Negombo for the last day in Sri Lanka
- Day 13 — All the problems concentrated on a single day
- Royal Enfield: Why India Rides Different
- Day 14 — The Kerala Backwaters
- Day 15 — Local bus to Munnar
- Leyland, a familiar name from the past
- Buying a beer in Kerala: Local knowledge required
- Mahindra: The Jeep That Never Left
- Discovering India Through Its Food – One Plate at a Time
- Day 16-19 — Four Relaxing Days in Munnar
- Day 20 — Travel to Kumily
- Day 21 — I Was Ready, Tigers Were Not
- Kathakali and Kalaripayattu
- Day 22 — Kumily to Varkala: The Journey is the Reward
- Day 23 — Slow day in Varkala
- IndiGo: Air travel for the masses
- Day 24 — Breakfast in Varkala, lunch in Bangalore, dinner in Goa
- Day 25-27 — Winding Down in South Goa
- Pit No. 30
- Day 28 — A Morning in Dharavi
- Day 28 part 2 — Hollywood, Bollywood: Different but the Same
- Epilogue — Night Market and a Red-Eye Home