December 11th

Yesterday after we ate lunch and we got Jeff a SIM card for his phone; we went back to our place and did something we rarely do we crashed and took a good 1.5 hour sleep. We needed this!!! Then we showered and went out for supper. We went to Prakruthi, Eco Shop and Wellness Cafe.  It is very close to us and it was good. The place is run by an older couple. She did not speak much English and he has a thick Indian accent. He just talked about the place (it's natural and uses non plastic containers, ect.) and asked where we are from. She took our order and made all our stuff by hand. We had a watermelon, cucumber, and lime shake. First dish we had a Millet Dosa (set of three) with Sambar(lentil-based vegetable stew with a few chilies) and Chutney(coconut with a few chilies). Millet Dosa is a bread in a pancake shape and form.  Second dish, Millet Noodles with Salad and Pickle. The noodles were shaped like ramen, but taste was way better; and they had small diced tomato bits with a LOT of chilies – WHEW!! This was served with a yogurt based salad of carrots, tomatoes and cucumber. (Oh and it had some chilies also.)  Chilies were the theme tonight. WOWZA! I was sorting out a big chunk of them, but I still missed quite a few and OH MY! I was sweating, but not from the outside temperature –  rather inside my mouth!

After dinner, we walked back and had the start of thunder storm, but we made it back before it started unloading. Then we talked with family and watched our church service back home while listening to the rain. The we crashed and slept well.

Awoke this morning – both of us! – after nine solid hours of sleep. We got around and went to breakfast here, it's included. One was a continental French Toast. Other was traditional Southern Indian of Idli- a type of rice cake; a Batata Vada -fried potato ball, with Sambar and a different type of Coconut Chutney from last night – this version was more of a soup. The process is dipping the rice cake into the two dishes and eating it this way.. The heat was not as much as last night but it was definitely there. I don't know if I'm up for this in the mornings after having very similar food the night before. But we finished both dishes.

We went back to our room and did Whatsapp with Jeff's sister and her husband. They are 13.5 hours behind us now! We then got a tuk-tuk, or a rickshaw, that Jeff booked online. We went to another phone place to get our other SIM card. (Jeff likes to get two different ones in case coverage is different in one area vs. another.) Anyway, this place sent us to a different store of theirs, it was close enough we walked. We found it and were helped right away, but it took 2.5 hours to get it. Good thing we hadn't made any other plans! But we got it and went to lunch/dinner (it's 3 pm) at a fried chicken place Jeff had seen. It was Poggop. We ordered a 5-piece deal, included the 5 pieces of fried chicken, 2 buns, 2 mayonnaise, 2 tomato ketchup, and french fries. (The mayonnaise and ketchup were in bottles so the “2” was weird. Questions??) Anyway, the chicken was excellent and had a little zing, I actually think Popeyes chicken back home had more zing, but I was okay with this. I've had a bit too much zing, lately. We also had drinks – Jeff a Butterscotch shake; I had a non-alcoholic mint Mojito, which I don't need to get again. But overall, we would not mind coming here again.

After this we walked around and decided to try to get to the beach. We made it to the fishing beach. The beach is not so great. There is quite a bit of litter and of course it is full of overturned boats for fishing. We walked on. It is a very fine sand (it is packed down) and it's almost gray colored. There is also a lot of seaweed strung up onto it. The litter cleared off the beach mostly. Then we heard what I thought to be machine-gun fire!! There were a few other people around, but no one seemed alarmed, so we kept on walking. One guy was sorting out a fishing net and he was doing a great job! Those nets, from what I have seen, can become very tangled. We next came upon a group of four teenagers, and they were saying hello. Then we heard the spitting of gunfire again, and the boys told us we could not go on, “the Navy was practicing,” and they use “AK47's”. So I'm thinking – are they telling the truth? and we heard more rounds of shots – okay maybe they are just trying to help us. There was a partial wooden fence, but no signage. They showed us how to climb the rocks and the alley to get out to the main road, following us most of the way. It actually was very nice of them and they were telling the truth about the naval base or that it is naval property. As we walked by, we could see the wall with coils of barbed wire topping it. We also kept hearing the shooting. Those boys did us a solid!

So that was our beach experience, So we won't be going back to that beach. There is one close by us that we thought  would link up with the fishing one – but that is not the case! Tomorrow we may try to go to our close-by beach, or maybe something else. Supper was just some cashews. It was cloud covered sky, so no watching of sunset again tonight. 

First full day of India, and the strangeness therein.