Lighthouse Beach

Kovalam is well known as an attractive village, based around two beaches separated by a functioning lighthouse. Unfortunately, Trivandrum airport has been opened to charter flights and Lighthouse Beach has been spoiled (in Patsy's view), although it does put another slant on "window shopping". Whenever you are sitting in a cafe or restaurant, hawkers come to show you (and sell you) their wares. With the increase in tourist trade, this is not limited to Indian wares but also includes the tacky flashing plastic tat one would expect to see at some of Britain's "kiss me quick" beaches... A real shame but that's progress...
Phil was in Kovalam some 5 years ago and reckons it has more than doubled in size. The amount of construction is amazing, all of it a very manual process which completely defies any health and safety issues. Apparently, a few hotels transgressed the line and built too far over the pedestrian walk way .... what we saw was the overhang being dismantled.
The sea food here is amazing though ... we have never seen prawns quite as large as the ones Patsy had one evening (well she had them every evening actually ). One of the sights on the beach is the fishermen hauling in their nets. There must have been 30 men plus the ones in the boat and the resulting catch was negligible... although it did cause quite a stir when a sea snakey thing was thrown around! In another net they thought they had a reasonable catch but found this huge tree trunk in the net when they finally got it on to the beach.