We reach Kanyakumari and attain our hotel via some narrow and rather slummy roads. We dock in front of the entrance and are immediately treated to a breathtaking vista through a glass wall of the lobby, looking out onto a never-ending expanse of ocean. For me, never having lived anywhere near a large water body, it is sheer paradise. Our room is available, sea facing, airconditioned and the most expensive that the hotel has to offer, which is not saying much. Meanwhile our travelling companions have been taken with the view and have also booked in. It is around three, so we repair for lunch. Apart from the view, there is not much class to this hotel. The building is large enough and well maintained, fairly new, but the dining room is tiny, with plastic chairs, rickety tables with a tiny, dirty washbasin forming very much a part of the furnishings. However, it has another spectacular view, so we sit side-by-side with our backs to the room and look upon the endless energy of the moving waters.

Lunch is prawn biryani, chicken biryani, a chicken curry sort of dish, and cauliflower. A huge amount, but we have had no breakfast and we are starved. The food is good, or perhaps it just tastes that way to our food-deprived insides.

We retire to our room after lunch, to enjoy the view from our balcony. Later, refreshed and relaxed, we venture out to explore the sights. A walk alongside the water seems in order, but there is not much of a beach, just an artificial rock wall, and a grassy slope up to the road. At one point there is a warning against climbing down the slope to the water. There is a man with a camera well below this danger sign. As we watch, a policeman rushes down to him, grabs his camera and flings it down, and sets about him with his stick. The miscreant skitters off across the rocks, the cop chases him, stick flailing, and there is much drama and action to the great delight of the score of onlookers, who cheer the cop and chastise the victim. Then it is all over, and we resume our walk.

We are walking west towards the sunset, but despite our best efforts the sun is going to set behind a lip of land, and the rocks prohibit our making our way around it to see the sun go down in the water. However, we needn't have worried, for it is a hazy day and there are clouds on the horizon, behind which the sun quietly subsides without much splendour or glory.

Travel brochures promise several sights worth seeing, but it is dark by the time we walk back, so we keep them for the next day. Instead we find our way to the bus stand to enquire about a bus to Kovalam, for, despite our worst intentions of not taking buses any more, we are finding cabs too heavy on the pocket. There is a bus at two, which gives us the morning for local sightseeing. We tentatively find out about cabs for local trips. Affordable at Rs 100 to the circular fort and Vattakotai beach and back. Pleased, we return to the hotel and head for the outdoor restaurant, a far more pleasant environment than our lunch room, for dinner.

Here several things go badly. First we must wait for a table. Having got one, we order some forgettable dishes and a kashmiri kofta, which turns out to be unforgettable. This is a mistake, but we don't know it until it is too late. Amit has tandoori roti, I opt for naan. While ordering, our waiter is engaged in conversation with another waiter. I try to name a dish, and am peremptorily told to wait. I am stunned speechless. Don't these people know that the customer is king? Don't they know that they are in the service industry and are supposed to serve, not chatter amongst themselves. Amit thrusts my glass of water towards me to get me to cool down. The imminent crisis passes. After a few minutes we are allowed to finish placing our order. We sit and wait. Several other tables get vacated and refilled. In fact, soon all the other tables have a fresh lot of diners. They order. They wait. We wait. They get served. We don't. They eat. We summon the waiter to demand service. He avoids our eye. We fume. Eventually he can avoid the inevitable no longer, and deigns to be summoned. Food will be served he assures, and disappears. We wait some more.

Eventually food is served, minus the naan. Amit is too hungry to wait. So am I. He eats, I nibble, in the hope that the naan will make an appearance soon. It doesn't. The food is uncovered and soon stone cold. The kashmiri kofta is horrible. The chicken with cashew nuts is bearable, especially on an empty stomach, and so is the fish. I vociferously demand naan. Eventually it appears. The food is almost finished, except the kofta. I take some and reach for the salt shaker, hoping that additional salt will impart some flavour, at least of salt if nothing else. As I upturn the salt shaker over my plate, the cover falls off, heaping a pile of salt onto my plate. I doubt this has done much to make the kofta edible, though it has succeeded in making it invisible under a hill of white.

Starved and miserable, we head for a sign which promises Arun ice cream - a brand which we have tried in Bangalore and found to have an excellent range of flavours. Unfortunately, here there is only chocobar. Bed is the only remaining solution.