We would have just until 10:30am to see some of Kanyakumari, so seemed appropriate to get up for sunrise.
Alarm set for 6:02am and we were up shortly after following a group of schoolboys towards Sunrise Beach. There were tons of people out in the streets and when we got to the beach it was packed beyond belief. I figured it was a thing as there is a beach and a point named for sunrise, but had no idea that hundreds of people would come.
We wandered through the crowd taking photos and watching people taking photos and then a cheer arrived from the other end of the beach. The kind that is similar to what happens when a plane lands. You know it will land, but people are happy that it goes as planned. At some point, the crowd was more interesting than the sun, but a guy behind us kept pointing at the sun and motioning a round ball shape with his hands, so we clearly were missing what was going on.
From there we planned to go out to Vivekananda Rock. When we got to the line at 7am, we couldn't believe that it was already a couple hundred people even though the first ferry wasn't until 8am. According to Wikitravel, you can pay an extra Rs. 150 to cut the line and it does seem to be true as the guard told us to come back at 8:30am to skip the line, but we weren't sure we'd have the time to get back for our train. A friend who had been 10 years back said it was like being a cow in gates, so I pictured us stuck on the island.
We had breakfast at the hotel, Hotel Temple Citi, as it was included in our room stay of Rs. 1200. Then walked up to the train station and along the long long train to the AC3 car and found our seats to Varkala. It was pretty empty, so we were able to stretch out and read.
Alarm set for 6:02am and we were up shortly after following a group of schoolboys towards Sunrise Beach. There were tons of people out in the streets and when we got to the beach it was packed beyond belief. I figured it was a thing as there is a beach and a point named for sunrise, but had no idea that hundreds of people would come.
We wandered through the crowd taking photos and watching people taking photos and then a cheer arrived from the other end of the beach. The kind that is similar to what happens when a plane lands. You know it will land, but people are happy that it goes as planned. At some point, the crowd was more interesting than the sun, but a guy behind us kept pointing at the sun and motioning a round ball shape with his hands, so we clearly were missing what was going on.
From there we planned to go out to Vivekananda Rock. When we got to the line at 7am, we couldn't believe that it was already a couple hundred people even though the first ferry wasn't until 8am. According to Wikitravel, you can pay an extra Rs. 150 to cut the line and it does seem to be true as the guard told us to come back at 8:30am to skip the line, but we weren't sure we'd have the time to get back for our train. A friend who had been 10 years back said it was like being a cow in gates, so I pictured us stuck on the island.
We had breakfast at the hotel, Hotel Temple Citi, as it was included in our room stay of Rs. 1200. Then walked up to the train station and along the long long train to the AC3 car and found our seats to Varkala. It was pretty empty, so we were able to stretch out and read.
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