Location Location, Location - India Style

Morning all, its dawn 5: 57 a.m. here in India so 00:27 back in the UK. I’ve been up since 5 a.m. as usual woken by the call to prayer from the mosque on the beach.  The air though still is cool and fresh and coupled with a rather good cup of coffee sitting here on the balcony listening to the waves breaking on the beach it’s a good way to start the day.

So, when I last wrote we were “homeless” hardly on the streets though as we were staying in a rather nice room waiting for the Keralan government to stop fannying around and issue the licence for our home.  But after three weeks of living in a hotel we were getting cabin fever, there was no personal space and it was getting claustrophobic. Also if we held on any longer and the licences wasn’t granted it would have meant al the best reasonably priced places would have been snapped up by the incoming wave of Russians due to arrive over the next week or so. 

So that was that, time to look for another home in which to spend the winter, it was time to play the Indian version of “Location, location, location”. Chris and Ravi immediately leapt to our aid though Chris has too much hair to play the part of Phill and Ravi our faithful tuk-tuk driver wasn’t prepared to dress up as Kirstie (not for the money we were prepared to tip anyway).

In our Indian version of the show all houses are mystery houses and we had eight to see in a morning.

Essential Criteria in no particular order were:

·         Licenced

·         Light

·         Reasonably spacious

·         Nice area

·         2/3 bedrooms

·         No more expensive than the house we had hoped to rent

·         Cable TV/internet (3G internet access in Kovalam is good and relatively cheap but Skype and access to Test Match Special  tends to munch the GBs at an alarming rate)

Chris also added his own criteria of

·         relatively few mossies

·         not too far from either where he lives and/or works (so he could keep an eye on us).

Off we set bottle of water in hand, Sarah and I in Ravi’s tuk-tuk, Chris riding on ahead on his motorbike.

House 1

Good points – large second floor apartment, 3 beds magnificent view out over Kovalam beach, owner prepared to decorate the entire place that weekend,

Bad Points – over a massage parlour, constant smell of massage oils, no glass in windows, no mossie nets over windows. Only one bathroom but owner prepared to put one in in a spare room.

House 2 (behind House 1)

Good points – reasonable size, 2 beds, clean (no need to redecorate) small balcony on the side with views out over the beach.

Bad points – building work behind the house Digger in the back garden, noisy.

House 3 (about 2 km from the beach on a back street – very Indian neighbourhood)

Good points quite large former Ayevedic treatment centre 3 bed/treatment rooms complete with own massage/treatment table and oil drip tray.

Bad points – very dark

House 4 (near house 3)

Small Indian family home (think large garage plus shed) – met on doorstep by current resident in vest and pants, baby asleep suspended by bungee cord in a shopping bag hung from the ceiling. One bedroom, considered if we got a bigger shopping bag would it do for Thomas and Lauren? – Moved on.

House 5 (Penthouse in newish build overlooking Lighthouse beach)

Good points - Very un-Indian modern apartment, best views yet over lighthouse beach, large open plan lounge, glass conservatory/dining room mossie nets on all windows, luxury spacious living. 2 bedrooms, separate access to second bedroom from outside.

Bad points – the reason for the nets and glass conservatory, this was mossie central and Chris aka Phil decided we couldn’t afford it.

Houses 6,7,8 Apartment block 100 meters from house 5

Similar issues as house 5 and came with own pet cockroaches.

After much debate – i.e. as much debate as you can have in the time it takes to drink half a bottle of beer. We had two choices, house 1 or 2 , we had excluded houses 3 and 4 and Chris had decided 5,6,7 & 8 weren’t for us.

In the end we went for house #2 as predicted by Kirstie aka Ravi.

We moved in two days later and have been playing house ever since (good news re: building work, its a swimming pool being built for the new hotel and has a completion date of the 14^th Nov. Sarah thinks we should be able to pay the hotel (i.e. bribe the staff) for access, so we have an apartment with a pool.

Well done Phil and Kirstie you’ve done it again!!!

And now…. Breakfast.

Kellogg’s Banana Cornflakes, fresh juice, toast & more coffee.

K&S