An evening out at Kovalam Beach (7/22/23)

Marshall's coworker, Shabna, invited us to join her and her family for dinner at the beach.  Her husband owns a jewelry shop there.


The beach was crowded.  Many kites were flying but they looked very simply made and almost looked homemade, not the fancy ones that Mackay flies when we are at the beach. Luckily, there was so much wind that anything would fly.
There is a boardwalk and you pass many restaurants.  They kept trying to lure us into their restaurant.  Thankfully, Marshall kept saying, "we are meeting our friends, maybe next time."

They have fresh fish on ice so you can choose the fish that you would like to eat.

Amir has run this shop for almost 20 years.  His father has another jewelry shop in the same area.  This is also a tourist area so he is used to British, Swiss, Russians and others.  He gets his stones from Tibet or Nepal.  He had some beautiful pieces and I'm hoping to buy something from him before we leave India.

The store front


Amir and Shabna have 2 boys.  They were shy and didn't really want to talk to us.  But they were happy to have french fries with ketchup and pasta with cheese. We had fried prawns for a starter.

Amir’s shop is located right next to this restaurant so they know him well. Our table had a perfect view of the Arabian Sea.  They came and sprinkled flowers in the middle of the table and you can see them in the picture.

I ordered vegetable fried rice.  Yes, I need simple things and the spices here may be the death of me.


Marshall and Amir shared bullet fish.  It is very fresh, right out of the water.  They call it grilled but it's not exactly what we are used to.  

 It was very nice to meet Shabna and to know some of the people he will be working with. They are Muslim, which they say is roughly 20%. They have a love marriage and not an arranged marriage and it was interesting to talk about that. Shabna is going to learn to drive and Amir wants her to drive but it is a little scary.  He gets up at 5:30 and he drives her to the gym 5 days a week to work out with a trainer.  Then home to get ready for the day.  She then takes a hired car to drive her and 4 or 5 other coworkers to the office. It is maybe 40 minutes from where she lives. Then we got into America TV and movies.  She is watching Friends and he is an avid Netflix watcher, an hour or two a night when everyone is in bed. Shabna is very fashionable and we had this great conversation about jewelry. Gold is big here but she likes silver like me.

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