Kasaragode

(This post and the one that follows, Mystery Location, are from the blog backlog. I wrote them a few weeks after we visited the places and then forgot to post them. To put them in context, see Cliff Notes, the summary of where I have been lately.)

Kasaragode was one of our great, not-listed-in-the-guidebooks adventures. When we tumbled out of the train, we were struck by the quiet and sense of calmness in the air. A breeze rustled the palm fronds and time didn't exactly stand still, but it certainly meandered at its own pace. We wandered around and the town itself had the same feel as the platform at the station. We figured out that most of the hotels are clustered around the new bus stand and caught a rickshaw.

The air changes. The new bus stand, which doesn't look particularly new at all, is surrounded by huge complexes with hotels and shops. These are definitely new and mostly empty. Our sparkling hotel doesn't seem to have any guests at all, and only about half the storefronts are occupied. We find an Indian Coffee House (a chain restaurant that isn't a coffee house at all but serves decent food) that just had its grand opening the day before in the same building as another just opened hotel and plenty of empty yet-to-open shops. Across the street are several large jewelry stores (jewelry is big business in India), and we wonder how a town this small can support stores so big. From a few construction and business signs and the size of the buildings, it is clear that this is not local investment supporting the growth. The entire area has the feeling of anticipation, of investment and expectation for the future. Both of us are (perhaps morbidly) curious to go back in a few years to see if the investors' gambles have paid off and if Kasaragode has become a destination of its own or at least a transport hub.

Our hotel room is my new favorite. There is a place to sit and type (handy, as I must finish editing my grad school application while we are here). The room is the quietest I have had in India: our giant window looks out over a grassy, wooded area behind the hotel. We fit my mosquito net over one of the windows and sleep with it open that night.

We find some great places to eat in Kasaragode, although the options are limited. The Muslim population is the greatest we've seen yet. The signs on most restaurants in India declare them "veg" or "pure veg". In Kasaragode they are all "non-veg" or at best "veg/non-veg." Even Indian Coffee House, the chain restaurant, reflects local tendencies: the thali, the standard rice plate lunch, is non-veg.