Vodarevu

Travelling to Chirala already has been a memorable experience
Firstly because I had no clue where I was going, I just wanted to travel
East and reach the coast to rest for a couple days on Eastern India's
beaches before going to Cochin for Arun's wedding.
So I took the bus and decided to head East from Hyderabad to Vijayawada to
Chirala and then to Vodarevu, a tiny beach resort. I sat on the back seat of
the bus because there was nowhere else I could fit my fat bum and my heavy
bag together, but as the bus went along it was slowly emptying of its
passengers, and for the last couple tens of km, I had the back seat for
myself. So I layed down, but the road became bumpy and I was literally
jumping off my seat.
Once I got in Bapatla, on my way to Chirala, there was no more bus
connection because of the late hours of my travelling, so I had to find a
place to sleep in the middle of nowhere. I found a shitty little hotel who
had one of his clients away that night so he hosted for a modest amount.
But he wakes me up at six in the morning to bring me some tea and then at 7
and 8 for a tip, what is more annoying than someone waking you up for some
money? Seriously I don't know.
So here I am up and ready to finish my journey. I get to Vodarevu but I
struggle to find a place to stay, I finally find a little hotel 100m away
from the beach which probably was the only hotel in the neighborhood, hotel
staff (2 people) were very welcoming and very excited to have a foreigner
amongst them. I had a little nap and then went to the beach were I met up
with a couple locals who sold me some fruits.
The next day I took the bus back to Chirala to check my mails and on the way
I bought some rubber balls to play around in the sea or even to play cricket
on the Vodarevu "playground". When I got back to Vodarevu, I grabbed a ball
and went to the sea shore. As I walked through the village many children
gathered around me, just by curiosity as I am a foreigner. So I offered to
play ball games and for a couple hours we threw the ball around. I got
hammered to the ground by a wave and injured myself at the level of the
waiste(hips), this really was a pain because I could not carry my heavy bag around
for long anymore. Anyway I met loads of children from the village and they
were worth it. They took me to the "playground" and I met up with loads of
cricket players who were brothers, oncles and friends of the kids.
I met up with a lot of locals, who one after the other were delighted to
introduce themselves to me. I then was invited to play along. I played three
consecutive matches of cricket, which every time has been won by my team.
The locals then invited me for a wedding celebration which is taking place
the day after tomorrow.
So the next day, same routine. I went to the beach in the morning, played ball with the kids and in the afternoon after a good chicken lunch, I went to the "playground" to play some cricket.
The day of the wedding, I walked to the village when a young kid I had played with grabbed my hand to take me around the village, very quickly a whole crowd of people had gathered around me and they wanted to show me the village lighthouse, so we walked to the lighthouse, but once we got there a couple of big dogs started barking at us from the other side of the fence. This quite clearly meant NO ENTRY, never mind I was close enough.
Then I just tried to kill some time waiting for the wedding to start, and as the whole village had gathered around the husband's place because the couple getting married was offering food to the entire village, I had a lot of people to talk to in order to get entertained.
The wedding was only going to start once every one had taken his share of food, so it actually didn't start before 11pm and by that time there was very few people still here to attend the wedding, most people have already gone back home, they just came for eating or so did it appear to be.
The wedding ceremony lasted for about an hour, husband and wife threw a lot of food to each other, they fought to find the wedding rings in a big saucer filled with juice and fruit pieces, they had there feat kiss one another in a very weird way, ... The whole ceremony was just traditions one after the other that had to be explained to me.
The thing that chocked me most just was that the invited people were offering money to the married couple, no presents, just money. And so the newly married couple was playing around with money during the ceremony.
The next day was my departure day.
For lunch before my departure the villagers had invited me to share a meal, I thought the idea was great and accepted without any hesitation, but that was a bad mistake. These people as I mentioned were fishermen and for lunch they had like all Indians a bole of rice but accompanying this fad dish was fish and not any fish.
Let me give you the recipe: you fish the fish some early morning and then, you let it dry in the sun for a day or so. That's it! The easiest recipe ever, it is now ready to be eaten. It stinks and it's smell is just the beginning, once you have the taste in the mouth you realize that the smell exactly corresponds to the smell only you cannot wash the smell out anymore, it stays stuck to your tongue even with a good mouth wash. To be honest I think it just striked my mind and couldn't get erased.
Luckily for dinner a whole new experience that I will as well remember for the rest of my life.
A villager callled,..., was very sad of seing me leave so soon. So instead of letting me go like most people would he insisted to take me over to Chirala and invited me and his cousin for dinner and a good one too. This meant a lot to me, not only was he ready to take a half an hour bus ride with me to the neighbouring city just to spend more time together before I left, but also he was ready to spend a week worth of his savings to invite me for dinner.
There was no way he would let me pay what so ever, I was the guest and so he was "honored" to pay for everything. He just told me, humoring me, that when he would come to Switzerland he would expect the same treatment.
It is unbelievable to see how people in poor countries deal with money.