Day 6: Kanyakumari - Kovalam: 120km+

We got up early to see the sunrise. It was a cloudy day, still we saw some sunrise. Then we went and saw other memorials in Kanyakumari. We could not go to the main attraction Vivekanand smarak as it took 3hrs to get there. I enjoyed the beach in morning and then later at the meeting of 3 seas. I am sure water of Indian ocean was bit colder than Bay of Bengal.
It was almost 11 by the time we started out for Kovalam. According to the plan we had 80+km to go. In the beginning, I saw first road-side nariyal pani. The road was still good.
It was hot, but I was expecting we take the beach road which will be flat. Little did I know what was in store. We somehow ended up on NH-47. There was moderate traffic, but it got worse as we got close to city. Nagercoil city was just terrible, traffic jam, not sure where what road is going. I thought if we took the beach road, we will be away from traffic. So we asked around and got up to the beach road. The road was much longer, but I expected us to make faster progress as we won't have to deal with traffic. Starting out it was good. It was along the oceam with glimses of backwaters. But soon that road just turned nasty. The road was completely potholed, and on top of that it was long rolling hills. This road was not flat at all. Add to that the heat of day and fatigue from dealing with all the traffic before. It made for a very unpleasant ride. It was clear that we were not going to make into Kovalam before dark. So we aimed at getting into Kerala at least. We had a very short bad lunch, and then just kept riding on. I was just really getting tired of the hills. Uphills were bad, but downhills were worse because the road was so bad, we could not go fast. It was scary at places. We just had to keep riding on. At one place, finally too tired, I asked where we were, and it turned out to be last town in Tamil Nadu. That was a bit heartening. We will be in Kerala soon. And we were, and it was quite clear. Its one long village, and constant noise of loud speakers playing bhajans never leaves you. The road was better now, but still all ups and downs which were really tiring. We reached the first town in Kerala - Poovar. Rahul and I wanted to stop here, I was clearly tired beyond fun. But Vaibhav wanted to push on to Kovalam which was another 20+ km. So we decided to push on. It was soon dark, and I had really slowed down. Somehow we managed to get into Kovalam. The beach is a long downhill and I had to walk it because I was just too tired to ride carefully. This ride was no fun.
Vaibhav found us a hotel on the beach and we stayed there. I was too tired to even eat, so I just had some bars and slept.