When I posted a few days ago about Chris’ surfing adventure, I commented that after accompanying him on Saturday, I elected to stay home on Sunday. At least one reader thought this was crazy! Who wouldn’t want to spend a few hours at the beach?

In theory, I am all for going to the beach. In practice, Indian beaches are just not used the same way as American beaches are. I don’t know that I can categorically say “Indians don’t go to the beach.”, but I do think it is fair to say that Indian beaches typically serve a more utilitarian function than American beaches do.

Not surprisingly, many beaches serve as a home base for fishermen who pull their boats up out of the water when not in use. In addition to boats, you can see many bundles of fishing nets, some boat motors, which seem to be removed when the boats are on shore, and a variety of other unidentified stuff on the beach.

I enjoy seeing the boats on the beach. It is interesting to me to see the different types of vessels used for fishing here, although it does make the beach somewhat crowded and less usable for typical American beach lounging.

Also making a home at the beach are these guys, who Lisa may appreciate.

I like the cows as well. They are peaceful to watch and I have some level of amusement with the fact that they roam the beach freely, but cows on the beach introduce a big problem for this beach-goer. Cow pies. Watch your step on a cow-filled beach!

Further exacerbating this problem is the fact that many of the people at the beach use it as freely as a bathroom as the cows do. When Chris first told me this, I had to question him further.

“Are you sure it is from people?”

“Not from cows?”

“Not from dogs?”

“Definitely from people.”

I’m sure that I looked at Chris with some level of alarm. “Is there…much?”

With a grimace on his face, he simply gave me a nod.

The visions I had of me lounging on the beach while Chris surfed immediately dissolved. I can certainly understand why many people, and cows alike, use the beach as a bathroom, but it still gives me some level of discomfort with walking on the sand. In retrospect, I’m glad that Chris didn’t mention this to me before we walked out on the beach for Ganesh Chaturthi.

I’m sure that I will still visit the beach on occasion, probably to watch Chris surf, but my vantage point will likely be the questionably sanitary beach side restaurant. Next time around I’ll stick to ordering water only!

Saturday afternoon we headed south, once again, to Mahabalipuram. I wanted to get out of the house, but more importantly, Chris wanted to go for a surf. It was my first time surf-spectating. Usually I am on board with at least getting into the water and giving it a try instead of just watching, but at this point a surfboard is way too hard of a surface for me to lay on my stomach on, it would feel pretty similar to laying on a bowling ball.

It was kind of bizarre to watch Chris go off to do some fun activity and be left behind watching. I know that it is just for a short time and that there is a good reason for it, but it made me feel like a boring, lazy, slug. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself.

At first I decided that I would walk around town a bit. Although we have been here before, I had never actually walked through the town. We spent both trips hiking around mazes of ancient sandstone carvings and had completely neglected to check out what was reputed to be a cute little backpacker enclave.

Ultimately, I was exhausted by walking around in the extreme heat and being hassled by an endless line of shopkeepers wanting to sell me stone carvings, sarongs, handmade leather sandals, and air-conditioned meals among other things. I made my way back toward the beach to a rooftop restaurant to settle in for some surf-spectating. I wasn’t really hungry and we were supposed to go out for dinner afterwards anyway, but I felt like I had to order something anyway if I wanted to sit on their roof. I decided on a bottle of water and a fruit salad.

Unfortunately, this was the first food that I have ordered in India that I felt unsure about eating! The fruit was peeled and all, but the establishment did not look especially clean and the fruit looked like it may have been cut and peeled several days ago. Um, no thanks.

Upon further inspection, it was probably correct to be concerned. When I got up to use the restroom, I noted that not only did it lack soap, but it lacked a sink entirely. It is pretty common here to find bathrooms without soap, but no sink brought my level of alarm with eating there to a new high! Not surprisingly, when Chris headed back on Sunday morning for another surf, I decided to sit tight at home instead.

More on surf-spectating. It kind of reminds me of watching a running race. There are a lot of really boring parts where Chris and all of the other surfers lay or sit on their boards waiting for sets of waves to come in. Now and then, things would get exciting and Chris would catch a few waves, hopefully close enough for me to capture with my zoom lens.

Ultimately, I had mixed feelings about watching Chris surf versus actually making an attempt at it myself. There was a lot more going on at this beach than just surfing, which did make watching more exciting, but began to make me question if I really wanted to get into that water. More on that another day!