SUNRISE OVER KANYANUMARI

Tuesday started early. I would even say that Tuesday started in the middle of the night for us. At 3:30am my room bell rang. It was Samson letting me know that our plans to leave the hotel at 4:00am had been changed a little and that we were going to leave in about 15 minutes. Fantastic. Who needs sleep anyhow? Our reason for waking early was to make it down the very southernmost tip of India to experience the sunrise over the ocean and we needed a few hours for travel time. I was thankful for the ability to sleep nearly anywhere.
 

Like the last two posts I will rely mostly on photos to transport you on my journey; however, I feel there is some entertainment value in a little anecdotal commentary regarding this adventure. I have become rather accustom to being watched or stared at as I travel about India. I am a minority here. My fair skin garners attention. Just reporting the facts here. However, something odd happened out on the pier at Kanyakumari that morning. I was sitting rather uncomfortably on the sea-dampened boulders waiting for the sun to make its grand entrance into our day when all of the sudden a little boy was placed directly next to me. He looked up at me with about as much bewilderment as I felt, and before I knew it the rest of his family had crowded around us while someone from their party took our photo. A few clicks later the photographer joined the group while another from the party stepped out to replace him behind the camera. It seems they were bored with waiting for the sun to rise so they resorted to photographing the next amusing thing in sight… me, the white girl. I laughed it off and joked to my traveling companions that they should hang a sign about my neck saying “10 rupees for 1 photo” and we might be able to buy ourselves breakfast on the profits. What I didn’t expect was that had we actually followed through with that plan we probably could have bought lunch and dinner, too! I lost count after about six groups of people asked to take their photo with me. Some stood awkwardly next to me while others boldly asked for poses and diplomatic handshakes, much to the amusement of my companions. It was the oddest experience for me. At first it was funny, but after a while it a little irksome.  I guess what goes around comes around. It isn’t like I haven’t stopped to take pictures of the locals myself. 

(I have about 300 photos of the sun rising... be glad you only get a small handful of them!)