It is hard to say what the status of the beach is - it looks as if it is done but there are still people working building a wall about 6 feet in front of the paved walkway. They've left it a bit late with the sea increasingly rough and work being interrupted by monsoon rains. Here are a couple of views looking each way.
Construction has been going on here at the Marina guesthouse as well. I knew it was going to happen but didn't really appreciate (perhaps not the right word) how disruptive it would be. My "favourite" day was when the headload workers who delivered the bricks (which are on the roof now) and sand turned up at about 6:20 am while I was having a lovely sleep. Oh well. Here's a shot of the courtyard of the guesthouse.
I will miss Vaisanthi's cooking - for most of my visit she has been preparing the food that Joy and I eat every evening and the leftovers of which I usually have for lunch the next day. She is a good cook and an example of what she serves us is below - in our 5 compartment tiffin box we usually get rice (kerala rice - not my favourite, I find it rather tasteless, it is very short grain and mushy textured), 5 chapatis (2.5 each), two vegetable dishes and finally, sambar/dal or some other "liquidy" concoction. In the photo below from left to right (in the containers above the plate) are dal, rice, okra and tomatoes (I think) and carrot thoran.
Some things I won't miss are the insects (mosquitoes have been brutal and there is a plague of tiny black flies, smaller than fruit flies, that get everywhere - up your nose, in your eyes and in your mouth), the garbage, the heat and other things that seem too petty to talk about but are so irritating when you have to live them every day.
