The peaceful beach and seductive sea-sunsets of Kovalam

Impressions of India: 10

I’m currently travelling for 3 months in India, through Goa, Kerala and Rajasthan, with a pretty hot and hectic schedule of boutique hotel reviews. The galleries below are my online photojournalist diary of scenes caught, people met and things found along the way. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did and am still.

Please do take a moment to log and/or e-mail me your reactions and comments? Given the slow upload speed, each post takes around 3 hours straight to get online (not counting image-selection and -editing time), and knowing that lots of you are reading and enjoying it will add great fuel to my fire.

Half-an-hour down the coast from hectic and smoggy Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, you'll find Kovalam and, just 4km south of town, the wonderfully peaceful cove of Samudra Beach. Because there's no direct road access to it, it's almost deserted, with only a few guests from the 2 clifftop boutique hotels, and the very occasional strolling local, visiting from time to time.

Big waves regularly pound onto the shore, creating their own rhythmic soundtrack but often making it dangerous to swim, and lacy aprons of surf  fan out across the empty white sands. Just beautiful.

Posts still to come before we're up-to-date: 

Varkala's grin-inspiring temple festival

A train, 2 planes and a sleeper bus, from Varkala in Kerala to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan

One musical, 1 contemporary, 1 suddenly-abandonned, and 2 Stone Age-style villages in the Thar Desert

Magical Jaisalmer Fort