New Year's Eve in Kovalam was absolutely spectacular at least the bits i can remember, its now 8 a.m. on the 2nd and I'm still feeling drunk.
As we had been told proceedings on the beach can get a bit frenzied we had decided to go to a very posh five star hotel do for the night at the Vivanta by Taj (look it up on TripAdvisor, its a popular honeymoon destination, all infinity pools and spa treatments). The theme of the night was "White Nights" and we all had to turn up in white. Sarah had duly spent Monday traipsing around Trivandrum for a dress and looked stunning in her Indian dress, i had a pair of white linen trousers and shirt on. We definitely looked the part as we headed out at 7:30 tickets in hand (£90 per couple, all food and drink included) for a civilized end to 2013, at least that was the plan.
The party was on the edge of the beach, a stage had been erected where various entertainments were promised, multiple marque tents erected for the lavish buffet and three bars for the 300+ participants a mix of hotel guests, local glitterati and tourists from around the world and us.
The first part of the evening was compered by an irritating bubbly Indian lass (think the love child of Timmy Mallet and Tony Blackburn and you will get the picture). Her job was to fill the gaps between performers with "fun games" and general hilarity. This was the point at which I made my first mistake of the night, i made friends with the bar manager, we got on like a house on fire as he singled us out for "special service" and my Bacardi and Cokes went from a 2:5 to a 5:2 mix.
Things went rather quickly from that point, we watched a troup of Mongolian dancers (very good), a Russian belly dancer (not so good), traditional Keralan song and dance (excellent) and enjoyed the extensive buffet.
It was during one of the comperes hilarious games I went looking for another table for us to sit at, one with a "bit of life". Unfortunately i found it, table 69. On which were Kiwi's, South Africans, French, Indians and a lad from Sri Lanka who was already looking totally lost. I had managed to find the only rugby table in the whole of Kerala. We moved to join them and were greeted warmly with the announcement they were all going to the bar as their waiter had abandoned them i.e took their last order, looked at them long and hard then ran off. These were our kind of people.
An hour or so later I remember trying to teach an enthusiastic but bemused Sri Lankan the words and moves to swing low sweet chariot, Sarah was trying to get the Indian off with a rather nice Russian girl, the French guy was running the buffet, the Maori lining up shots on the bar, and the South African lass explaining to me why white men should never try to dance.
We celebrated the arrival of 2014 on the dance floor which time we had been adopted by a Russian family whose daughter was getting married to an Indian. Her farther was a cross between an early Meatloaf and a Mafia hitman and amazingly was even more drunk than the rest of us. This would have been fine if this didn't mean we now had another new year to celebrate in half an hour, Moscow time. At about 1:30 (neither of us can be exact about the time) and far too many toasts later we decided to head home. I decided we were far too drunk to walk the 1 km along the beach so we got a tuk tuk.
Things went down hill from there rather rapidly.
There is no direct route from the hotel to our apartment so the tuk tuk had to head inland about 2km before the run down to the apartment. At which point the motion of the tuk tuk, the smell of the diesel fumes, the rogan josh, mango ice cream, biriyani, Bacardi and Coke, vodka, indian champagne all combined to produce what Sarah describes as the most spectacular demonstration of projectile vomit she has ever seen, and certainly rivaled the earlier firework display, right over the tuk tuk drivers head.
Needless to say we now had a 2 km walk home. Most of this is a blur but at some point i decided to throw away my shirt and destroyed my white linen trousers.by falling over in the Hindu Temples car park at the bottom of our drive. Fortunately Ganesh loves a piss head and we made it home.
All in all it was the most disgraceful and best New Years Eve I can't remember....
Happy 2014
K&S
As we had been told proceedings on the beach can get a bit frenzied we had decided to go to a very posh five star hotel do for the night at the Vivanta by Taj (look it up on TripAdvisor, its a popular honeymoon destination, all infinity pools and spa treatments). The theme of the night was "White Nights" and we all had to turn up in white. Sarah had duly spent Monday traipsing around Trivandrum for a dress and looked stunning in her Indian dress, i had a pair of white linen trousers and shirt on. We definitely looked the part as we headed out at 7:30 tickets in hand (£90 per couple, all food and drink included) for a civilized end to 2013, at least that was the plan.
The party was on the edge of the beach, a stage had been erected where various entertainments were promised, multiple marque tents erected for the lavish buffet and three bars for the 300+ participants a mix of hotel guests, local glitterati and tourists from around the world and us.
The first part of the evening was compered by an irritating bubbly Indian lass (think the love child of Timmy Mallet and Tony Blackburn and you will get the picture). Her job was to fill the gaps between performers with "fun games" and general hilarity. This was the point at which I made my first mistake of the night, i made friends with the bar manager, we got on like a house on fire as he singled us out for "special service" and my Bacardi and Cokes went from a 2:5 to a 5:2 mix.
Things went rather quickly from that point, we watched a troup of Mongolian dancers (very good), a Russian belly dancer (not so good), traditional Keralan song and dance (excellent) and enjoyed the extensive buffet.
It was during one of the comperes hilarious games I went looking for another table for us to sit at, one with a "bit of life". Unfortunately i found it, table 69. On which were Kiwi's, South Africans, French, Indians and a lad from Sri Lanka who was already looking totally lost. I had managed to find the only rugby table in the whole of Kerala. We moved to join them and were greeted warmly with the announcement they were all going to the bar as their waiter had abandoned them i.e took their last order, looked at them long and hard then ran off. These were our kind of people.
An hour or so later I remember trying to teach an enthusiastic but bemused Sri Lankan the words and moves to swing low sweet chariot, Sarah was trying to get the Indian off with a rather nice Russian girl, the French guy was running the buffet, the Maori lining up shots on the bar, and the South African lass explaining to me why white men should never try to dance.
We celebrated the arrival of 2014 on the dance floor which time we had been adopted by a Russian family whose daughter was getting married to an Indian. Her farther was a cross between an early Meatloaf and a Mafia hitman and amazingly was even more drunk than the rest of us. This would have been fine if this didn't mean we now had another new year to celebrate in half an hour, Moscow time. At about 1:30 (neither of us can be exact about the time) and far too many toasts later we decided to head home. I decided we were far too drunk to walk the 1 km along the beach so we got a tuk tuk.
Things went down hill from there rather rapidly.
There is no direct route from the hotel to our apartment so the tuk tuk had to head inland about 2km before the run down to the apartment. At which point the motion of the tuk tuk, the smell of the diesel fumes, the rogan josh, mango ice cream, biriyani, Bacardi and Coke, vodka, indian champagne all combined to produce what Sarah describes as the most spectacular demonstration of projectile vomit she has ever seen, and certainly rivaled the earlier firework display, right over the tuk tuk drivers head.
Needless to say we now had a 2 km walk home. Most of this is a blur but at some point i decided to throw away my shirt and destroyed my white linen trousers.by falling over in the Hindu Temples car park at the bottom of our drive. Fortunately Ganesh loves a piss head and we made it home.
All in all it was the most disgraceful and best New Years Eve I can't remember....
Happy 2014
K&S
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