Violence, getting out, and back in the city

When we last joined our hero, he was in the beach resort of Varkala, starting to make his way out of India...

Well, trying to leave this country has been a stress and a strain, but tomorrow thats exactly what I'm doing. STA truly are useless, despite telling us that they were a free and easy, youthful ticket service that could change your ticket when needs be this turned out to be a half truth. Sure, they can change the date, and if your really lucky change the destination on domestic flights, but as to international flights, like changing the things that would be of ANY USE TO TRAVELERS then, no, they can't.
Trying to get to europe has taught me something about backpacking: don't use STA. STA and other travel agents are OK...its just that I didn't know of the existence of E-Tickets. You can book online a few days before the flight, bring a printout and a passport and, boom, your on. No commission, No hiked prices, nothing.
Sigh, but never mind. Our last few days in Varkala were interesting, as soon as I left the internet cafe, writing on this very blog that there wasn't anything to update you on, we go down to the local hot spot, the funky art cafe and theres some argument between the waiters and some other Indian bloke. He's yelling about "It's your mistake!" the owner and waiters are trying to calm everything down, but a punch or two is thrown and they have to get this guy out. Problem is, he's brought friends. With sticks. Next thing we know, the waiter is running from two shirtless men with said bludgeons, unfortunetly he falls and starts begging them to not hurt him. They're not listening. They knock him and his friend around a couple of times, they scarper inside again. Except guess which two westerners are sitting on the outside right next to where the stick men are attacking? Thats right, dear reader, Me and my bro. We, are understandably a little worried and just keep out of it, I left my bat-suit in the cave. This is clearly going to go from bad to worse. It does. More people turn up, they smash a bottle, go to stab someone in the kitchen, a light get smashed, someone starts doing in the walls and before you know it, the aggressive gang is smashing up the place, breaking in the lights, the bottles, the food, the amps, the instruments, even the tables. The westerners all get out and head for the bar down the road. All this is awful for the owner, because not only is his place getting smashed up, this is the most packed his bar has been in weeks, because it's low season, and he just lost out on everyone paying for their food. A more violence inclined westerner tries to get involved with a plastic chair, his friends drag him off.
It's a pretty major event, and is on my mind for the next few days because it all seemed a little too planned...not just some drunken brawl. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, and I never did find out exactly what was going on, and it probably was just some random drunk thing, but guys don't usually bring bats with them to a bar, and god knows something like that doesn't happen because someone gave someone the wrong change. It also wouldn't surprise me if there was a protection racket or something...other westerners seemed to think so too. One girl I met had a more believable spin on the drunk thing, she was planning on leasing a guest house there, so she knew a lot of people around. "These people work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, they sleep in the restaurant for 3-4 hours if they're lucky, and they do all this for the high season of about 6 months. In the low season, there's not enough tourists coming in, not enough money to go round so tensions are understandably high."
She was very interesting girl, big, blonde and american, came over for a few months and had decided to stay a few years. She'd manage to organise the only party we ever saw in Varkala, so she was a great person to know. It seemed horrible the idea of working like that, I worked 8-10 hours day 5 days a wekk for 5 months. That was unpleasant. And despite it seeming believable there could be something more sinister going on...I just can't quite sell myself on it, looking back.
Varkala was wonderful, met a few interesting people in the 2 weeks we were there, unfortunetley we only met them in the last couple of days. At night you can see a horizon of fishing boats and their lights, it's got to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
But we needed to leave. We're a bit tired of the east, I like its prices, I love the experience and I hope to come back here soon...but I need rolling hills, castles, museums, clubs, bars, good food! Prague has some of the best nightlife in europe so we here, its also a stunning city almost built for backpackers and stag nighters, so that was our aim. To get to Prague. But to get to Prague, we need to get our ticket changed and to get our ticket changed we needed to go north to Enarkulam. Which is where I am now.
At first it was a nightmare getting the ticket changed, we'd settled in changing the date and then getting a flight from London to Prague. At first we were told we couldn't get one till May 2nd. Ouch. We hadn't planned on two more weeks in India...we could have managed it and had fun but our heart was now set on Europe. Then we couldn't change the ticket till Monday. Damn. Then when we did go back on Monday a whole load of earlier flights has opened up and we could get out of India as early as we liked, so our journey starts tommorow, we'll be in Prague early morning on the 25th. Like really early morning. Like 1AM in the morning. Try finding a cheap way into the city then after long flights and hours waiting in airports for a connecting flights. Fun is not a word I would use. Still, we're couch surfing to make it cheap as chips (and a bit more complicated. Yay!)
Enarkulam is great, by the way, we found a cheap hotel with a TV and theres plenty of ways to shop and wait around for the travel agents to open. Not least the Subway down the road. We had sunday buffet the other day in the swankiest hotel in town, where we got some hilarious characatures made of us, I'll try scanning them on at some point. Why they drew me driving a car and Sam playing guitar, I'll never know.
All this means, by the way, I'll have a few hours in merry old england! I have time to nip into london, grab some fish and chips, and get back (kidding). It will be interesting to feel the weather. When I am safe in Prague, I hope to be writing an upbeat blog to tell all my journey was stress free. Oh, and this does mean, since Europe you have to survive on slightly more than 5 pounds a day, that the money will be running out faster, and so will my time backpacking. But hey, me and Sam are nearly ready to come home, after one more continent under our belt, we should be back early May, a week or two before we originally planned to return. Wish me luck!

PS I found a place selling half price comic books (so now it was 10p a comic instead of 20p!). I went a bit bezerk. My bag is now a lot heavier.