From Calicut, we continued our way up the coast. Driving past a wonderfully pristine beach and towards a super awesome Couchsurfing family.

Once again we left early in the morning to not be part of the absolute insane traffic, which is so common for Indias city rush hours. Wondering what happened to our newspaper article and where we could buy one of those Deccan Chronicles, we drove along the superb highways of Kerala. You need to know that got interviewed the day before in Calicut – but that is part of another story.

Our Couchsurfing contact was at work until 6 pm, so we figured out it would be best to stop somewhere on the way and make a little break because we were making to much progress with our route. So we searched for a nice beach close to the road and ended up in Kappil.

Kappil beach

A very small city, with a white and sandy beach far away from the touristic masses in Varkala and Goa, where we had spent some days as well. When we saw this strip of white nearly untouched sand we could not believe our eyes.

Here we were, kind of accidentally, at one of the best beaches we might have ever seen. So we put on some bathing clothes, enjoyed the powerful waves rushing towards the shore and jumped around on the nearby boulders and cliffs.

It felt like an adventure like we were the first to ever see this raw natural beauty.

Being late

Sadly we needed to leave this wonderful place to get to our Couchsurfing friends in time. Well… we failed miserably in this regard because we got into a huge traffic jam. Jayson, our host, awaited us at the bus station in Mangalore. We picked him up with our tuk-tuk and drove over a little, unilluminated street, once again blinded by the overly bright headlights. You need to know that Indians think that light is security – so more (or brighter) light equals more security. Needless to say, they all drive with high beam all the time, blinding each other. We were told that some Indians even drive with sunglasses on at night. Somehow Flo still managed to stay on the small, bumpy road, without seeing it and somehow we got to Jayson’s house “safe”.

Couchsurfing = worldwide family

The warm welcome of his family, even though we were late for roughly two hours, was worth the effort. They had actually waited for us with their dinner and once we had freshened up under a very very nice hot shower, we dined. They had prepared curry, rice, chapati and all the other things we love so much about Indian food. It was delicious until the very last bite.

All homegrown.

When they told us that most of the ingredients were farmed on their very own self-sustainable farm, we could not believe it at first. In the morning Jayson showed us around.

A huge swath of land, with coconut palms, oil palms, pepper plants, mango and papaya trees, tomatoes, honey bees, giant wells, small paddy fields and lots of peacocks … there was so much to see and explore but sadly we and Jayson had not much time. He needed to go to his office and we wanted to reach our next destination.

Fresh honey?!

Before we left this wonderful family though, we took group pictures and got equipped with a freshly harvested lunch bag… fresh coconut, papaya, and honey. They took the honeycombs out of one of their many bee hives directly in front of our very eyes.

Wow… let me tell you: it tasted amazing. Not at all like the honey one can buy in the grocery store. This one was much more herb and intense, less sweet… in a nutshell just very different but a lot better.

Saying goodbye is always hard.

We are still glad to have met this beautiful family. I am bad at saying goodbye and because we did not stay with them for a longer time I did not know what to say except thank you. Leaving breaks my heart. Again and again…

I am still baffled by how much those experiences shaped us and I am sure of one thing: The bonds we made with all those people will bring us back there one day. I am looking forward to that day. But until then we continue our adventure and as always you can read more about that in our next article.