January 20

Today we both had a sleep in! Finally up and had breakfast of our oranges and some nuts. Then out and about to the beach! It was later than we would have liked making the sun more intense, so we weren't out long. We had on our bathing suits and did get in the water. It seems cooler than the water of Alleppey Beach, actually this surprised us both. I guess we farther north, but did not think that much further. Anyway, something I forgot to mention yesterday, there are cows on this beach! I don't remember seeing them on the beaches before- another surprise! The slope out into the water is quite a bit more gradual and this causes even less wave action, and the water is pretty calm. We were able to go out a long ways. I thought there would be more people due to it being the weekend. We only stayed out 20 minutes, but they were nice minutes. We don't want to burn. We have been seeing too many burnt tourists, and don't want to be in that category!

Then we went back to our place: relaxed, dried out and then rinsed off. Finally, around 2 we went out for lunch. We opted for the restaurant right next to us, Dropadi. We were brought out a few fresh fish to choose from. We chose the Red Snapper. The whole fish was marinated in a lime, ginger, and garlic sauce (yum) and then grilled. It was moist and melt in your mouth good! For our sides we had french fries and sauteed veggies (carrot, mushroom, red/yellow/green bell peppers, and zucchini). We also had a hummus and toasted garlic bread for a starter. I had a Strawberry Daiquiri, Jeff a Kingfisher Beer. It was as good of fish as we had had in South Africa! Soo good! Excellent lunch to enjoy watching the ocean and hearing the surf.

Finished we went the 50 steps (maybe??) to our place and took a siesta. I blogged and Jeff read. Then went out to see the same sunset as night before. (We haven't seen a great sunset since South Africa.  🙁 )  As we were walking the beach a local gave Jeff a flyer for a 'People's Market – products from local community artisans'.  We found it and went in. About the second vendor was a cheese maker, with real cheese. (We have not had real cheese in India.) It was great! Jeff went back to our place to get money. I hung out and looked around, but all other vendors were mostly clothes. So I just watched as foreigners seemed to flock to him. Found out he is Italian, but visited with his family and they moved here. He had learned cheese making from his grandfather, and has been making the artisan cheeses here since then. One lady was German and exclaimed “cheese!” (much as we thought). He gave samples to anyone interested (and all who sampled bought some). He had two buffalo cheeses (we bought the stronger one of these): and he had two cow cheeses: the one we tried was chili; the other was black pepper and it had not been cut on, or offered, so we did not try it. So with some of our supper in hand we went back to our place, only diverted to buy some chili cashews.

Back at our place, we had our light supper of the cashews and some of the cheese. Jeff also opened the wine Big Banyan Cab Sav. Well it was the best we have had here – will buy it again! Today ended up being a foodie day, but sometimes you need these days!!  🙂