Hello everyone :)
I hope you guys are going well. 2026 is here so instead of repeating the same mistakes I made in the past decade I decided to scratch one of the list. It's traveling haha.
It's been more than a decade since I went on a trip far away from home. I know, right? People be dying to travel these days and explore new places and then there is me XD. I had immunity issues in the past so my travel experiences were not that great but things have changed now so my buddy has been asking me since last year to go on a trip to a beach in a place called Varkala in Kerala. Honestly, I had zero interest. Why? Because my home is also near a beach so what's the point? Then I did some digging and found out that this is not exactly your regular beach. It's also know as the 'cliff-side beach'. That got me intrigued and upon seeing some pics online I was interested. We booked a room in a resort called Black Beach resort for 2000rs(22.19$) for 2 days.
We started our journey on January 10th morning at 6:30am on a train from our home town but we reached the resort an hour early so we couldn't just check into our rooms but the people there were okay with us keeping our luggage in their lounge area before we started exploring. The interesting part about this resort is that the rear area of the hotel leads directly to the beach. Because of that they charge a bit high on literally everything haha. That's expected in most places like this but it was totally worth it haha.
Varkala Beach
You can see what the hype is all about now. There are two cliff areas, north side and south side where you can walk through the edges to see the beautiful to view from the top. Man, it was so peaceful up there. So quite and serene. See the black beach seafood restaurant sign? That's the restaurant from our resort. They built it on the cliff area facing the beach to enjoy the view while we have our food. I knew then and there I made the right call coming here.
The Blue Beauty
This is the first time I saw a beach where the water is blue in colour with some decent transparency like you see in popular vacation destinations. We had a few more minutes to check in to our rooms so we decided the explore the cliff side attractions. It was hot though but the cooling breeze from the sea calmed it down and also it's a perfect opportunity to take some pictures under this lighting haha.
After walking through the cliff side for a while we realised that the activity there is quite low. It's because of the time though. Most people just come out after 4 pm when the sun is down a bit. After looking around there for a while we decided to go down and take a quick walk near the shores.
Beach Activities
I really wanted to go for some yoga classes but our budget didn't allow that. Yoga near the sea shores seems refreshing. Now I know the place I'll definitely come prepared next time to experience this. Oh yeah, this place is one of the best tourist attractions in Kerala so the place was flocking with foreigners, probably the highest I have ever seen in a tourist location. I used to play PC games a lot so I can understand enough to know the language they are speaking. I realised that a significant portion of the tourists were Russians and Italians. I guess they like the cliff side beach.
We finally reached the shores but as expected it's almost empty because of the heat. We walked for a bit and took some pics and it was almost time to check into our rooms so we went back.
The Cliff Side Path
This is where you walk while you enjoy the sea side view. On the right side it's the sea and on the left side it's mostly resturants and shops for clothes and beach accessories. You can see a lot of people talking pictures here. We took some too. It's not everyday you get to take a picture like this so we took plenty XD.
We went back to the resort after exploring a bit and saw the beautiful aquarium on the way back. It's right next to entry point of the their cliff side restaurant.
Artworks
Saw these beautiful works depicting our local culture on some of the walls on the resort. One of them was inside our room. It's rare to see people painting in this styles these days. Funny thing is that we don't seem to appreciate our own art style so we place them in locations where tourists love it haha.
View from outside our room
I wasn't expecting this much vegetation near the rooms XD. Feels like we are one with the nature. The whole place was like this and some kids were running around so it was so lovely to see so much joy there!
lunch time
We decided to skip the resort's restaurant because the focus is primarily on sea food so we skipped it because we are also from coastal areas and had no interest in that so we walked on the cliff again for a bit more to find a good restaurant which sells other varieties. finally, we found one called the 'Clafouti Restaurant' and both the view and menu looked great. We decided to order some Butter Naan and Butter Chicken Masala with milkshakes and man it was so delicious like it was expensive haha but it was totally worth it. I didn't take any pictures because some people were staring at me inside the restaurant so I was kinda shy XD. The bill came out to be 730Rs(7.1$). It was a heavy meal so we were getting a bit tired and sleepy so we went back to our room to take a nap.
Cliff side Sunset
Beautiful as expected and sipping a hot beverage from the top of the cliff is super relaxing. We didn't go there because they were selling tea at 6x the price compared to local vendors. That's just too high. Some of these vendors are totally taking advantage of the cliff side view to bump up the prices. Not everyone does that though so you should be fine incase you are visiting here.
Oh yeah, this is probably one of those few beaches in Kerala which is bikini friendly so there is that. You can assume why a lot of foreigners as well as locals flock here haha.
Night time vibes!
It's a party place alright haha. After 7pm I could hear the local pubs blasting music at high volumes. Also the place became more crowded at night. I loved every moment of it especially the part where people from different countries vibing together during this time. I was severely under dressed sadly. I didn't expect people to dress up that well in this area haha. After 9pm the we had our dinner. My friend got some chicken sandwich and salad while i got Chicken fried rice for 560Rs(6.3$). We shared and wow the food didn't disappoint at all. During this time the lower area was filled with only foreigners. It was just us who were the locals. They were having crazy expensive meals like a gigantic lobster etc.
We saw this while walking back to our hotel after finishing of dinner. So basically these are caught fresh and they are damn expensive. I heard one guy asking the price for a piece and the waiter said for 120g of that big fish it was around 600Rs(6.66$) XD. Something i noticed is that seafoods are selling at a significant higher price compared to meat and veggies. Along the way we took some photos of ourselves and went straight to bed. My friend wanted to take some more photos in the morning so we had to sleep early.
The next morning there was some light rain so the plan to take photos were ruined haha. I was actually happy because this guy won't annoy me to take photos (i already clicked more than 100 pics of him) lol. The check out time at the resort was at 11pm but before that we had our breakfast in their own restaurant. It was added during the booking time.
It was a small buffae with local vegetarian food but they had boiled eggs though. That was nice haha. Also the coffee tasted so good too which gave me the morning boost I needed for our last adventure there. Kayaking option was there but I wasn't interested because we won't be able to rest in the resort anymore because of check out timing. We talked to a local guy and he said it's 600Rs for one guy for 3hrs. Sounds like a great deal. Maybe next time perhaps!
The cliff side shops
They were selling some good stuff there particularly for women. We didn't need anything so we just went down the stairs after the weather improved to get some shots for the last time.
This guy was so cool. He was the only one surfing there. The waves were not that great but he still managed surf for a few times.
Found a curious thing!
I thought it was drugs first because of the shape and size plus I saw some senior citizens complaining about it to the beach cleaners. We asked one of them and he said it's plastic and they were assigned to gather them throughout the day for a kickass pay of 1750Rs/day (19.41$). I was very much interested haha but we ran out of time. These things were there because some containers carrying it fell into the ocean. They said they collect it and send it back to the owners. I'm still wondering why the pay is so high. Curious indeed haha!
Well, that's one way to end the trip huh. After this we went back to the resort, packed our stuff and gave them back the keys and waited for a ride back to the bus station. Luckily we got a direct bus back home so everything was pretty smooth. I really enjoyed the trip. I think more than the stunning beach and the dreamy view from the cliff side it was the diversity of people here that made the trip so much memorable. I couldn't believe that I missed out on this for this long. Trips with close friends are the best. It never felt tiring at all and made the whole journey so much more memorable!
All photographs belong to me otherwise credited
Thank you so much for your time guys :)
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